Fenway Park's Yawkey Way To Be Renamed

BOSTON, MA — Goodbye, Yawkey Way. Hello, Jersey Street. That's the result of Thursday's vote about whether to change the name of the street home to the famous Red Sox' Fenway Park before a Boston City commission this morning.

The Red Sox owners, including Boston Globe owner John Henry, asked the city to consider renaming Yawkey Way in an effort to distance the team from former longtime team owner Tom Yawkey's racist legacy. On Thursday, the Boston Public Improvement Commission unanimously voted to approve a change after just one person testified - but a month after a lengthy public meeting filled with emotional comment from gave them plenty to consider.

Those in favor of a name change - a return to the street's previous name - argued it was a way to move toward healing from a racist past. The Red Sox were the last team Major League Baseball team to integrate black players.

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Those who argued against the name change, including board members of Yawkey Way Foundation, said such disassociation would hurt the philanthropic mission of the foundation.

"The effort to expunge Tom Yawkey's name has been based on a false narrative about his life and his historic 43-year ownership of the Red Sox. The drastic step... will unfortunately give lasting credence to that narrative and unfairly tarnish his name, despite his unparalleled record of transforming the Red Sox and Fenway Park and supporting the city he loved through his philanthropy," reads a statement it released.

The president of the NAACP told Patch before the vote she was hopeful the street would be renamed and the city and the Red Sox could move forward, and that the work the Yawkey Foundation had done would not be sacrificed by the street's rename.

"There seems to be an attempt to present a revisionist narrative of who Tom Yawkey was and also of the discriminatory practices during his tenure," the president of the NAACP, Tanisha Sullivan, told Patch in March. "It's troubling to us that there would be an attempt to essentially deny the racial oppression and racial isolation that was experienced by people who worked for the organization, or who wanted to work for the organization, so it was very difficult to experience that."

Jersey Street is the name the public way had before 1977, a year after Yawkey died. The request for a change came at the request of Henry, who said he is still haunted by the racist legacy of Yawkey.

Yawkey owned the Red Sox from 1933 to 1976, building a complicated legacy during the longest ownership stretch of any team in baseball history. In 1977, the city named the street after him. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1980, four years after he died of cancer.

On his watch, the Red Sox became the last team to integrate black players in a Major League clubhouse. Pumpsie Green debuted with Boston 12 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier with the Dodgers.

But Yawkey is also known for his philanthropy in the foundation that he had created after he died. Critics of the current street name, like the NAACP, still praised the work that foundation had done after Yawkey's death, especially in the communities of color.

What about the history of Jersey Street?

Some critics worried the history of that name might also reveal a racist background. Well, Edgar B Herwick III investigated and told WGBH's Jim Braude and Marjorie Eagan on their Thursday's show he found out that many of the Boston streets were named after earls in Great Britain. Jersey is one of the Channel Island that are part of Great Britain. Jersey Street is named after this place as is New Jersey where, yes, there is an earl still living today.

The 10th Earl of Jersey told Herwick his great great relative the 6th or 7th Earl of Jersey would have been the earl during the time that the street was named in the Fenway and Back Bay.

His family was a banking family, according to Herwick who asked if they had any connection to the slave trade.

"I certainly don't think we actively went out to make money on the back of slave trading, whether the family owned a 'slave' I couldn't tell you," he said. Adding that he was pretty sure the family was English based and had little to do with forays into Africa or America.

"I think I'm going to have to become a Red Sox Fan," he said on WGBH.

Now the question is: What about all that Yawkey Way paraphernalia from the "Yawkey Way Store" ?

Previously on Patch:

Red Sox Want To Rename Yawkey Way

Red Sox Requesting Name Change For Yawkey Way

Fenway's Yawkey Way To Be Renamed? For Now It Stays

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File Photos by Jenna Fisher/Patch