Friday, June 28
Audre-Lorde Straße: Berlin street renamed for feminist poet
Audre Lorde was an African-American poet who spent significant amounts of time living and teaching in West Berlin, and from today a street in Kreuzberg will bear her name. The northern section of Manteuffelstraße has been officially renamed Audre-Lorde-Straße, starting this Friday.
Lorde had a strong connection to Kreuzberg, and in February 2019 the district decided to honour her. This action also correspond with a decision by the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg from 2005 that new street names should always be named after women. The inauguration ceremony starts at 17:00, organised by the FHXB museum and Dekoloniale Berlin. The event will see speeches from politicians, activists, scholars and filmmakers as well as music and catering from food trucks.
The southern section of the street will continue as Manteuffelstraße, a name it has had since 1852 when it was named for the conservative politician Otto Theodor von Manteuffel. Other members of the aristocratic same family have also earned notoriety, with Hasso von Manteuffel serving as a Nazi general in World War Two and later becoming a politician in West Germany for the FDP.
