Resurrection of East Confederate Avenue is a sign of the times

Last week, when I opened Apple Maps, I got a blast from the past.

Sitting in my driveway, I entered my destination and was surprised when the directions told me to turn right on East Confederate Avenue SE.

Wait, the street that years ago the city renamed United Avenue SE? Had I fallen into the Atlanta-verse?

In October, Apple Maps began displaying part of United Avenue SE as "E Confederate Ave SE." The street name had been changed in 2018 after approval from the city and consensus from area residents. (Nedra Rhone/AJC)

I will start by acknowledging that Apple Maps is my default navigation tool. And yes, I know what everyone thinks of Apple Maps.

Since it launched in 2012, users have criticized the app for its inaccuracies. I did not realize how deeply people hated Apple Maps until I searched user forums to see if anyone else had noticed a street name changing back to its old name.

The app has improved in recent years, but according to tech experts, it still ranks behind Google Maps as the best all around navigational assistant. When I checked Google Maps, “United Ave SE” was intact.

Apple was in a time warp of its own making.

Atlanta is not an easy city to map. As early as the 1900s, the city developed a reputation for renaming streets. Times changed, people changed and street names changed.

Sometimes street names changed because the function of a street no longer matched its modern usage, and sometimes a street name changed because it no longer matched modern sentiments.

In the 1980s, the city voted to rename Forrest Avenue, which honored Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, as Ralph McGill Boulevard after the journalist and editor of the Atlanta Constitution, a supporter of the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1997, Stewart Avenue became Metropolitan Parkway to help the street shake its stigma as a red-light district.

Confederate Flag runner Alan Keck (left) debates Grant Park resident Katie Kurumada about the petition to change the name of Confederate Avenue. Keck, who ran the park three days a week, was concerned about the heritage aspect of Confederate names and symbols. (AJC 2017)

In similar fashion, in the aftermath of violence at a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, we found ourselves in another moment where it made sense to reevaluate to whom or to what we pay homage in the streets.

The city developed an advisory committee to study Confederate iconography in Atlanta, and Confederate Avenue and East Confederate Avenue SE quickly rose to the top.

The street had gained its name from the Confederate Soldiers’ Home built in 1902 to house aging Confederate Civil War veterans. The building was demolished in the early 1960s.

In 2018, the Atlanta City Council approved changing the name of East Confederate Avenue SE to United Avenue SE, and Confederate Avenue to United Avenue. More than 75% of neighbors in the southeast Atlanta neighborhoods along the street, including Grant Park, Ormewood Park and Woodland Hills, approved of the change.

In January 2019, residents and supporters marched down the newly named United Avenue SE to celebrate the yearslong effort. The old street now had a new name that had been chosen by the people.

Yet Apple seems to have disregarded all of this with its newly labeled map.

Naturally, I wanted to know how this happened, so I sent a screen shot and questions to Apple’s media relations team.

Why would Apple Maps revert to an old street name after having the correct street name for more than five years?

I didn’t get a response, but that’s no surprise.

In a forum for Apple users, an iPhone owner said they had been contacting Apple for years to request a street name change but never got a response.

About 24 hours after I sent my query, the street name had been corrected and United Avenue SE was restored to Apple Maps.

This Confederate/United street name snafu would not feel so egregious if it had been just another street renaming, but this was a massive effort, covered by the national news media and celebrated as a model for similar efforts in the city and beyond.

For those of us who live in the communities along United Avenue SE, changing the name from one that evoked a history of division to one that reflects a mood of cooperation and belonging meant something special.

The naming of United Avenue was a reminder that we can come together to do something good, that we still share a common sense of right and wrong, and that in the face of crisis, there are always people who are willing to work together.