Lena Olive Smith ’21
Edmund Boulevard in Minneapolis was recently renamed Lena Smith Boulevard during an unveiling ceremony at the 36th Street intersection.
Lena Olive Smith ’21 was a civil rights activist and the first Black woman attorney in Minnesota who dedicated her life and career fighting discrimination, including housing discrimination. Her most famous case was in 1931 representing the Lees, a Black family who was terrorized by white mobs for buying a home a that crossed the color line at 4600 Columbus Avenue in Minneapolis. Smith was the president of the NAACP at that time.
The street’s former namesake, Edmund Walton, was a prominent real estate developer who introduced redlining and racial covenants that blocked African American families from moving into white neighborhoods in Minneapolis.
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- Professor Emerita Ann Juergens and former Mitchell Hamline President Eric Janus
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- Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey
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- Juergens with former Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles-Belton