Don’t Misstate Their Names

No you won’t be naming no buildings after me

To go down dilapidated

No you won’t be naming no buildings after me

My name will be misstated, surely.

—Erykah Badu, “A.D. 2000”

This song has been running through my head for a couple weeks. I just found myself singing it one morning and it has yet to release its grip on me. It reminds me of when I would travel to a new city and pass down its Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. More often than not, I would be disheartened to see Dr. King’s name, synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement, attached to a street sign in a Black neighborhood that is, to use Badu’s words, “dilapidated.” What will become of this moment/movement? What will become of the names that we seek to remember? Will they be relegated to street signs, murals, songs, tokens of a time when people could say, “I fought on the side of justice”? For a moment. Or will their memory be evidence of a lasting victory? #DontMisstateTheirNames #AD2000 #ErykahBadu #MyPeopleTellStories