Street in Harvard Arboretum to Be Renamed Flora Way After Enslaved Woman

The Boston Public Improvement Commission voted Thursday to rename Bussey Street — originally named after Benjamin Bussey, a merchant who donated the land for Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum and who amassed his fortune trading goods produced by enslaved individuals.

The street — which passes through the Arboretum — will be renamed Flora Way in honor of Flora, an 18th century Black woman enslaved by William Dudley, the grandson of former Massachusetts governor Thomas Dudley. She worked on his farm roughly a quarter-mile from the location of the Arboretum.

The renaming is a result of a two-year push led by the Bussey Street Renaming Initiative working group, composed of residents and activists from Roslindale and Jamaica Plain. They began their campaign after a 2022 report by the Presidential Committee on Harvard & The Legacy of Slavery identified Bussey as one of several major Harvard donors who profited off of slavery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The working group circulated a survey among residents in March containing five finalists for the street’s new namesake, including Flora and two other individuals who were enslaved in the area.

“Renaming Bussey St. for Flora would elevate a person from the most marginalized community in our past of enslaved people, who did not even have last names, and would redress, in a symbolic and public way, the wrongs of slavery perpetrated and profited from by so many, including not just the Dudleys but Benjamin Bussey, as well,” the Renaming Initiative wrote in the March document.

The Arboretum, which supported the renaming, wrote in a Thursday post on their website that “the working group is committed to ensuring ongoing community education about slavery in the area and about Flora and her life as an enslaved person” to avoid associating the name with the Arboretum’s plants.

The Arboretum added that “the working group has taken care not to demonize Benjamin Bussey” despite his connections to slavery.

“He was also a generous philanthropist, whose gift of his farm to Harvard eventually became a large part of Arboretum’s historical landscape some 30 years after his death,” the Arboretum wrote.

In recognition of his donation, the Arboretum will keep Bussey’s name on three “prominent parts of the Arboretum landscape” — Bussey Hill, Bussey Brook, and Bussey Brook Meadow — and a nearby railroad bridge.

Flora Way will officially take on its new name on Oct. 25, with a public dedication event planned for Oct. 26 at 2 p.m. inside the Arboretum’s Walter Street Gate.

—Staff writer Neeraja S. Kumar can be reached at neeraja.kumar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @neerajasrikumar.

—Staff writer Annabel M. Yu can be reached at annabel.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @annabelmyu.