Edmund Walton brought racial covenants to Minnesota. Should his name be on a street?

Edmund Boulevard in south Minneapolis is a stretch of just 14 blocks, its gentle curves lined with picturesque houses with views of the parkland along the Mississippi River. But for all of Edmund Boulevard’s attractiveness, the story of its namesake reveals an ugly chapter in Minneapolis history: racial covenants.

The street is named after Edmund Walton, a real estate developer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who introduced and popularized racial covenants in Minnesota. That language written into deeds banned anyone but white people from owning or living at the properties.

Upon learning about the boulevard’s history, Mark Brandt and his friend Joe Larsen decided its name needed to go.

“When people are driving along the parkway and they turn into the neighborhood, one of the first things they’re going to see is the word Edmund,” Brandt said. “If people find out he’s this racist guy, we knew about him, but we decided not to change the signs anyway, that says something horrible about us.”

Walton’s racially discriminatory housing practices would become the blueprint for similar covenants across Minnesota, which ended only after the Legislature banned them in 1953, according to the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project.

The effort to rename Edmund Boulevard comes after several successful campaigns to change the names of other local landmarks, including lakes, schools and streets, with controversial pasts. Lake Calhoun was renamed Bde Maka Ska because its namesake was a strong supporter of slavery. Ramsey Middle School changed to Justice Page Middle School in 2017 over its namesake’s call for the extermination of the Dakota people.

Brandt and Larsen don’t live on Edmund itself, but live nearby and pass it often. They held two informational meetings with residents in October and December so that people who live on the street could ask questions or voice their opinions. The pair also created an informational website about the name change effort.

At the neighborhood meetings, residents discussed renaming the street, rededicating it to someone else named Edmund, or doing nothing. At the December meeting, four residents voted to do nothing, 10 voted for a name change and 20 voted to rededicate the street to a different Edmund.

Steven Belton, a Black man and former CEO of Urban League Twin Cities, has lived on Edmund Boulevard for 30 years and said he has never met another Black family who lives on the street. He attributes the legacy of Walton’s racist covenants and wants the street name changed.

“This is the best redress for the result of Edmund’s racist, discriminatory and exclusionary policies,” Belton said.

Belton said the effort to keep the name but rededicate it to another Edmund was upsetting as it ignores the history associated with the name simply so residents can avoid changing their address on their mailing lists.

“I want people to do what’s right,” Belton said. “I want this neighborhood to get behind it and I want the political establishment to get behind it.”

In Minneapolis, residents can ask the city for a street name change if they provide a petition with the signatures of two-thirds of households on the street, plus a $300 application fee and an agreement to cover the costs to replace the signs. (There are at least 12 signs for Edmund Boulevard.)

City officials can also change a name if a council member, the mayor or the public works director asks for it.

In 2021, former Council Member Andrew Johnson helped with an effort to rename Dight Avenue, which was named after a man who championed eugenics and Adolf Hitler. It’s now called Cheatham Avenue.

While Brandt and Larsen initially wanted to collect signatures to change Edmund Boulevard, difficulties reaching residents and the costs associated with a local petition prompted them to change tactics.

The two have talked with Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, whose ward includes the area, to ask her to push for a name change.

“I am supportive of the name change. It’s an important action that we can take to signal to the city of Minneapolis and our community that we want our city to be welcoming to all people, especially Black and brown, Indigenous communities, immigrant communities,” Chowdhury said. “Edmund Walton, the person the street is named after, does not uphold those values.”

Chowdhury said more time interacting with the community is needed before she takes action to change the name.

If the effort is successful, Brandt hopes the new name would honor the Black or Indigenous history in Minneapolis.

There are plans to host another meeting, but no date has been set, Larsen said.

Jack O’Connor is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.