Advocates in Southeast Raleigh are calling for the city to name a stretch of New Bern Avenue for Clarence E. Lightner, the city’s first popularly elected Black mayor, paying tribute to a “trailblazer” on a major urban gateway.
Longtime activist Octavia Rainey said she hopes Raleigh can honor Lightner on signs from Person Street to WakeMed, an inside-the-Beltline corridor that passes through neighborhoods where Lightner held sway for decades — long past his mayoral term from 1973-75.
Rainey said she and backers from College Park, Oakwood and other neighborhoods that run up against New Bern will meet with city, state and federal officials on Thursday at 1 p.m. to discuss what requirements or hurdles might be involved. That stretch of New Bern includes both a downtown post office and the Terry Sanford federal building, meaning the name would affect their addresses…