After years of plea from residentsPhiladelphia plans to rename a street currently named after controversial Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, who wrote one of the most infamous opinions in the court’s history.
After more than 160 years, Taney Street in Philadelphia will soon be renamed LeCount Street in honor of Caroline LeCount, the first black woman to pass the educational exam in Philadelphia – and who some have called Philly’s own Rosa Parks.
The Philadelphia City Council will announce the decision at noon in the council chambers during a press conference with the Rename Taney Coalition, along with Council Member Jeffery Young and City Council Speaker Kenyatta Johnson. Both members’ districts include portions of Taney Street.
LeCount and her fiancé, Octavius Cattofought a law that allowed segregation on horse-drawn streetcars in the city.
“She jumped on a streetcar. They were going to drop her off the streetcar,” author Fasaha Traylor said in 2022. “But she kept coming back. She was persistent.”
The law was finally overturned in 1867.
LeCount and Catto never married because he was shot and killed near his home at 8th and South streets after riots broke out in the city on Election Day on October 10, 1871. Catto has been around ever since honored with a statue outside the town hall. LeCount became a school principal at the age of 22 and led a school that was later named after Catto.
Who was Roger B. Taney?
Taney Street is named after former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a Maryland native with no major ties to Philadelphia who led the court for 28 years.
Taney authored the majority opinion in the 1857 decision Dred Scott vs. Sandforda case in which Scott sought freedom because he had lived in a free state. Taney wrote that because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and had no right to sue. African Americans “had no rights that the white man was bound to respect,” the decision said.
A year after the decision, the City Council renamed the street along with 970 others in an ordinance passed in 1858, according to the Rename Taney Coalition.
At the time, the street was called Minor Street before it took Taney’s name.
Now in 2024, the coalition said the street’s residents largely supported the change to remove Taney’s name. A descendant of Taney also supported the decision.
“Renaming Taney Street does not address the vast and terrible legacy of my ancestor; however, it is only one small part of a multi-pronged approach to make our streets and community better in so many ways,” said Joy Taney in 2022.
Congress removed a bust of Taney in 2022 and replaced it with an image of the late Judge Thurgood Marshall.
The future LeCount Street runs north to south between 26th and 27th streets. There are parts of Taney Street in South Philadelphia, and it continues into Fairmount and into North Philadelphia.
