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Brooklyn Residents Call to Rename Barclays Center After Jackie Robinson
New York City has been a hub for civil rights activism for decades, from Malcolm X’s ’60s Harlem to the modern-day Black Lives Matter movement. And that push for change has continued well into 2020 due to the protests around the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others who have died at the hands of police.
Now, Brooklyn residents are pushing to have the Barclays Center renamed after Major League Baseball great Jackie Robinson.
Robinson, who changed the face of baseball as the first Black player of the MLB, spent 10 seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Jackie Robinson Parkway as well as a few structures throughout Brooklyn in parks already honor the famous Black Dodger.
Although the Barclays Center, which opened in 2012, is named after the British bank, I’ve always considered it the “House That Hov built,” thanks to Jay-Z’s involvement with the massive Brooklyn stadium. As a native New Yorker myself (and a New York Knicks fan, admittedly), the home of the Brooklyn Nets getting renamed after #42 would be a proud milestone. Due to the mass gentrification that Brooklyn has undergone in the last decade alone, reclaiming the space would help re-center Black Brooklynites who have been long pushed out of the narrative.
As the Black Lives Matter movement has found a New York City landmark in the Barclays Center, it only makes sense it bears the name of a Black Brooklyn hero.
