Brady Arts District Business Board Responds To Tulsa Street Name Change

What's in a name? The Brady Arts District Business Association says call the street what you will, they will continue to work to promote the arts, education and "the advancement of tolerance" in Tulsa.

The association responded to the city council's name change of one of the central streets that runs through the Arts District of Tulsa.

Brady Street was officially renamed MB Brady Street after protests over Tulsa founder Tate Brady's ties to the Ku Klux Klan and reported involvement in the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.

M.B. Brady was a Civil War photographer with no connections to Oklahoma.

The business association says it will continue business as usual while researching district's history.

They plan to showcase their findings soon.

Here is the Brady Arts District Business Association's response to the City Council vote:

We believe that the process of compromise which the City Council took was wholly within their purview as the City's governing body.

As we stated in the meeting of August 8 ... We have committed to a cause of education and the advancement of tolerance as Business and Property Owners in the Brady Arts District. And changing the name of a street will not change our commitment to this education process both short and long term.

In the time since May, we have embarked on a program to assemble information on the entire history of our District - its start as a center of commerce to its present day morph into the Arts Center. We are forming an on-line presence as well as informational materials throughout the District to display the good and bad of the District's Past, Present and Future.

We are expanding our program past the physical boundaries which "Brady Business District" holds as the official listing in the National Register of Historic Places (Roughly along E/W Cameron and E/W Archer, from N Boulder to N Detroit) to include what is known as The Brady Arts District today. Making certain to acknowledge other specifically designated areas, such as Greenwood, which have overlapped in the development of our present day Tulsa.

As this process evolves, we hope to enlist the participation of the entire Tulsa community to be certain the information is educational and, above all, factual.

As the Arts District of Tulsa, we will continue to strive to display the extensive diversity and progress which our area represents to all citizens of Tulsa and beyond. One needs only visit our neighborhood and talk to our business owners and residents to know our commitment to inclusion and opportunity for all people.

As business owners, we will continue to operate our businesses - hiring and welcoming people of all races, ages, military statuses, genders, ethnic backgrounds, handicaps and sexual orientations. We will work together to showcase the District to the world.

As individuals we will all work to our commitment of inclusion and opportunity for all people - advancing sane and proper causes for all members of our Tulsa Community. Including above all, equal education and rights for all members of society.

And we ask all Tulsans to join and share with us in a positive process of education and tolerance and hope it might spread beyond our city limits … and maybe even to our own state Capitol were equal opportunities and the welfare and health of all our citizens are one of our shared priorities.

The Brady Arts District Business Association
Executive Board