BOSTON — Boston officials Thursday approved changing the name of Yawkey Way, the street outside Fenway Park, because of allegations former Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey was a racist who resisted signing black ballplayers in the 1940s and ’50s.
The city’s Public Improvement Commission unanimously approved a proposal by current Red Sox ownership to call the stretch of road Jersey Street, which it was originally named before being changed in 1977 to honor Yawkey the year after he died.
“The spirit of Boston is being renewed,” said Walter Carrington, 87, a former member of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination who investigated the Red Sox organization in 1959.