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Formerly known as Bussey Street, Flora Way was dedicated on Saturday to the woman who lived in the area in the 18th century.
People enjoy the warm weather while framed by the spiraling branches of a cork oak tree at the Arnold Arboretum. John Tumacki/Globe Staff
After a community vote, the busy Boston thoroughfare that runs through the Arnold Arboretum was officially renamed Friday to honor an enslaved woman named Flora who lived nearby.
Formerly known as Bussey Street, Flora Way was dedicated by Harvard University and local officials to the woman who lived in the neighborhood in the 18th century. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, City Council Speaker Ruthzee Louijeune and several city councilors attended the ceremony.
“Flora was the obvious choice of the 378 residents of the contiguous Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods who submitted their contributions, as well as 120 other respondents from across the city and state,” the Arboretum said in a statement earlier this this month.
Councilman Ben Weber, who represents Jamaica Plain, spoke just inside the Walter Street gate of the Arboretum.
The name change came after local advocates – including JP Centre/South Main Streets, Roslindale Village Main Street, Weber and Councilman Enrique Pepén – pushed for an examination of the complex legacy of the street’s namesake Bussey.
Benjamin Bussey was an 18th-century businessman who donated much of the 281-acre green space. Although Harvard University researchers did not find evidence that Bussey enslaved people himself, they reported that he made his fortune from products like coffee and sugar produced by slaves. With his wealth, he purchased land on Jamaica Plain that later became the Arnold Arboretum.
The community voted this spring to choose five finalists, including a botanist from the 1940s and other slaves. According to the Jamaica Plain
Historical Society, Flora was a woman who was enslaved by the prominent Dudley family, whose name was removed from several Roxbury monuments in 2019. Her biography states that although not much is known about Flora herself , its name will also reflect the lush greenery of the Arboretum.
Boston’s Public Improvement Commission approved the change to “Flora Way” on Oct. 10, ending two years of advocacy to remove Bussey’s name from the road that divides it, the arboretum announced.
But Bussey will not disappear completely. Bussey Hill, Bussey Brook, Bussey Brook Meadow and a nearby railway bridge all continue its legacy. The Arboretum said it did not want to “demonize” Bussey.
“He was also a generous philanthropist, whose gift of his farm to Harvard eventually became an important part of the Arboretum’s historic landscape, some 30 years after his death,” they wrote.
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