A street in the German capital, Berlin, will be named after a Tanzanian independence activist, Lucy-Lameck.
A street in the German capital, Berlin, will be named after a Tanzanian independence activist, Lucy-Lameck.
Councillors in Berlin have voted to replace the street name honouring a colonial governor in East Africa accused of having ordered massacres with one of a leading female Tanzanian independence activist.
Wissmannstraße, named after Hermann von Wissmann, is set to become Lucy-Lameck street.
Lucy-Lameck was Tanzania’s first female cabinet minister as well as a leading figure in the country’s independence movement.
Councilors in Berlin began making plans to rename the street back in summer 2019. The Neukölln district council assembly in the German capital then began searching for an individual who has contributed immensely to the district or resisted colonial structures.
The Wissmannstraße is expected to be changed to Lucy-Lameck street early 2021.
Von Wissman was governor of German East Africa (now Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda) in the late 19th Century and is believed to have behind the mass killings of local people.
Berlin Postkolonial, one of the groups behind the call for the name change, welcomed the local authority’s decision.
In a statement it said that the campaign had prevented “the further honouring” of Von Wissmann and in its place put “a Tanzanian woman who actively opposed colonialism and racism”.
