Hyattsville is considering renaming Magruder Park after renowned African American artist, scholar, and longtime city resident David Driskell in an effort to erase the park’s segregationist ties.

The Hyattsville City Council passed a motion Monday in favor of changing the park’s name to David C. Driskell Community Park. The Council must now vote on a resolution to rename the park during its May 17 meeting before the name change takes effect.

“Our Council understands removing the racist language from the deed and renaming the park is not a cure-all to address issues of race and inequity in the city, but we feel it is a step in the right direction,” said Hyattsville’s Interim Mayor Kevin Ward in a statement.

Local officials first considered renaming the park in 2018, and efforts ramped up in 2019 following a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that left one person dead and multiple injured. Councilmember Joseph A. Solomon was among leading proponents calling for the city to sever ties with its segregationist past. Magruder Park was funded and named after former Hyattsville Mayor William Pinkney Magruder, who intended that it be used by “the Caucasian inhabitants only of the said town of Hyattsville.”

“Psychologically, something like a name can still make people feel unwelcome,” Solomon told the Washington Post last year. “It continues to provide that underlying sentiment that this racism is still acceptable.”

The Council considered more than 830 proposed name changes last November. Residents suggested naming the park after Driskell at least 235 times before the Council narrowed the list to five names: David C. Driskell, Nacotchtank, Unity, Gateway Community Parks, and Inspiration Park. Some notable suggestions that didn’t make the cut included “Barack and Michelle Obama Park,” “Breonna Taylor Park,” and “Banana Peel Park,” (named after Mario Kart).

All submissions were reviewed by the city’s Race and Equity Task Force and Health, Wellness, and Recreation Advisory Committee before being presented to the Council on March 15. The committee required that the new name be “welcoming, relatable, and inclusive, and resonate with the diverse cultural make-up of the City’s population,” and stand the test of time so as not to represent a controversial figure in the future. In addition to the name change, it asked that the Council verbally and physically acknowledge that the park is situated on tribal land of the Nacotchtank people with a plaque or boulder in front of the park.

Similar efforts to untether local buildings and monuments from their racist histories have taken place at schools, monuments, and street names across the region following nationwide protests against police killings of Black people last summer. Most often these efforts are set on replacing the name of a controversial segregationist figure with a notable civil rights champion or Black icon, but now and again wildcard picks like Jojo Siwa enter the running.

David Driskell attended Howard University and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Catholic University of America in 1961, according to his biography. He was a distinguished professor of art at the University of Maryland from 1977 to 1998 and received distinguished honors from Catholic and Howard universities. Driskell received the President’s Medal — the nation’s highest civilian honor — from President Bill Clinton in December 2000. After he retired from teaching at UMD, the university founded the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora dedicated to “preserving the rich heritage of African American visual art and culture.”

Driskell’s worked in collage and mixed media and explored themes including identity, the Black experience, and how the African American diaspora has influenced visual culture rendered in lurid abstract visuals. He died of complications from the coronavirus on April 1 at a nearby hospital. He was 88-years-old.

“Renaming the park as David C. Driskell Community Park adds a new chapter to the park’s storied history, one that we believe embraces some of Hyattsville’s core values of inclusivity, neighborly care, and appreciation of the arts,” Ward said.