Officials in Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, renamed the street where the United States embassy will soon be located after late Muslim black nationalist leader Malcolm X.
On Thursday morning, municipal workers changed the street sign to bear the name “Malcolm X Caddesi” (Malcolm X Street) next to the site of the future embassy in Ankara’s Çankaya district. The change took place after the city council voted unanimously in favor of it.
The decision to change the street’s name was first proposed in September, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Malcolm X’s daughters in New York during the United Nations General Assembly. At that time Erdogan described Malcolm X as a symbol of “the struggle against racism.”