The Berlin-Mitte district council approved renaming a racist street to honor Anton Wilhelm Amo, a Black German philosopher, but a lawsuit by residents challenged this change. The Berlin Administrative Court upheld that residents lacked legal standing against the name change. Civil society groups have campaigned for decades to rename Mohren Street, which has racist connotations linked to colonialism and the practice of enslaving Africans as servants. The street's history is intertwined with Germany's colonial past and the 1884 Berlin Conference, which divided Africa among European powers.
"Decolonization does not happen by changing a few street names," the political scientist and human rights activist Joshua Kwesi Aikins told DW after it was announced that a central city street with a name that many regard as racist would honor Anton Wilhelm Amo."
The major European colonial powers gathered at the 1884 Berlin Conference "discussed how they might divide up Africa" which kick-started Germany's genocidal colonial rule in Namibia.
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