Road to Sandra Bland’s alma mater renamed in her honor

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas — A small Texas university town where a black woman was arrested during a traffic stop — launching a chain of events that ended in her death in a jail cell — has renamed the road leading to her alma mater for the Naperville woman.

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.