PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (AP) — A small Texas university town where a black Chicago-area woman was arrested during a traffic stop, launching a chain of events that ended in her death in a jail cell, has renamed for her the road to her alma mater.
The Prairie View City Council voted Tuesday night to rename University Boulevard, the road to the Prairie View A&M University campus, to Sandra Bland Boulevard.
The vote came after an afternoon of demonstrations backing the move. Bland’s death prompted numerous protests of law enforcement handling of her case.
A July 10 traffic stop in Prairie View escalated into a confrontation between Bland and a state trooper that led to Bland’s arrest. She was found hanged in her Waller County jail cell in Hempstead July 13 in a death ruled suicide.