"Decolonization does not happen by changing a few street names," the political scientist and human rights activist Joshua Kwesi Aikins told DW after it was announced that a central city street with a name that many regard as racist would honor Anton Wilhelm Amo, a Black German Enlightenment philosopher who in 1734 became the first scholar born in Africa to receive a doctorate from a university in Europe.

That was in 2020. At the time, the district council of Berlin-Mitte had approved the renaming, but, before it was implemented, residents filed a lawsuit against it.

The Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg has now upheld a decision by the Berlin Administrative Court stating that residents have no basis to take legal action against the name change.

Several civil society groups have lobbied for decades to change the name of Mohren or "Moor" Street (respectfully referred to as M-Strasse), and the U-Bahn station of the same name.

Moor, in its Greek roots, means dark or black, but also "stupid or primitive," Aikins said.

M-Strasse runs through........

© Deutsche Welle