Berlin drops derogatory name for metro station after protests

BERLIN (Reuters) – Berlin public transport company BVG said it would change the name of a city center metro station that has become famous for bearing a name based on a derogatory word for blacks.

The announcement comes amid a worldwide calculation with buried legacies of racism and colonial crimes underpinning many Western societies that was sparked by the death in the United States of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of a police officer.

The Berlin BVG said that the “Mohrenstrasse” metro station, literally Moor Street, which uses the medieval term for North African people, would be renamed to another nearby street, the Glinkastrasse, named after the 19th-century Russian composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka.

The station, a few hundred meters from the Brandenburg Gate in central Berlin, has come up with a number of names since it opened in 1908. It acquired its current name in 1991.

Although the word “mohr” is no longer used in modern German, its history (linguists say it had acquired a derogatory flavor in the 18th century) has caused complaints about its use in some street names.

Last month, unidentified activists filmed over the station’s entrance, temporarily naming it “George Floyd Street.”

“Out of respect for the sometimes controversial debate over the street name, BVG has decided not to use it anymore to name the subway station,” he said. “BVG rejects all forms of racism and discrimination.”