The civil rights group Black Lives Matter 5280 made its case for changing the name of Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood on Thursday.
The group addressed members of the neighborhood association board and developer Forest City. Stapleton is named for a late Denver mayor who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
"When my small niece or nephew asks “Who was Ben Stapleton?” I have to tell them who he was and I have to them that we are still congratulating him for what he did," said Vince Bowen, is an organizer with the campaign.
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Tom Gleason, vice-president of Stapleton’s developer, Forest City, welcomed residents to call their neighborhood what they like. But he says his business needed the name.
"To market the property you have to refer to the location and that’s what we’re doing," Gleason said. "We are not referring to the former mayor, we talking about the former location of an airport."
Several Stapleton residents and the president of the neighborhood association say they support a name change. To do that, residents could vote to rename the neighborhood association. The Denver City Council would have to rename public streets and buildings in the area.
