{"id":468217,"date":"2026-10-16T21:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T21:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/468217\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T21:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T21:52:24","slug":"dallas-city-council-approves-ceremonial-renaming-of-the-houston-street-viaduct-in-honor-of-former-dallas-cowboy-pettis-norman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/468217\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas City Council approves ceremonial renaming of the Houston Street Viaduct in honor of former Dallas Cowboy Pettis Norman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two signs noting the proposals of the \u201cPettis Norman Bridge,\u201d one for the proposed street name change and one for the proposed ceremonial street name topper. Photo by Victoria Hernandez.<\/p>\n

The Dallas City Council voted Wednesday, Oct. 14 to honor Pettis Norman<\/a> with a ceremonial renaming of the Houston Street Viaduct.<\/p>\n

Norman, a Dallas Cowboys player from 1962-70 and District 3 resident, passed away in July 2025. He was an active civil rights advocate, working to address segregation within professional football and Dallas in the 1960s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was one of the first Black banking executives in Dallas and founded the Dallas Together Forum, a coalition of corporate leaders dedicated to expanding minority hiring and business contracting opportunities for women and minority-owned firms.<\/p>\n

The initial renaming bridge request<\/a> was brought forward by District 3 Council member Zarin Gracey with the support from District 4 Council member Maxie Johnson and District 8 Council member Lorie Blair. The change went through the Quality of Life, Arts, & Culture Committee in March,<\/a> and was denied by the Subdivision Review Committee in June.<\/p>\n

The City Plan Commission voted to send the item to council in August, with a majority of commissioners voting in opposition due to the historic nature of the Houston Street name.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Council deferred the initial vote for the bridge renaming scheduled for Sept. 9, bringing the item back Oct. 14, along with the ceremonial renaming option. The vote Wednesday followed a Heritage Oak Cliff community meeting hosted on Sept. 8 and a survey conducted by District 1 Council member Chad West\u2019s office to gain resident feedback on the two proposals.<\/p>\n

The vote passed unanimously in favor of the ceremonial renaming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two signs noting the proposals of the \u201cPettis Norman Bridge,\u201d one for the proposed street name change and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[899,2919,102,113,104,103,159313,47067,159314,159315,90278,9296,29687,142362],"class_list":["post-468217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-chad-west","tag-civil-rights","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallas-together-forum","tag-district-3","tag-heritage-oak-cliff","tag-houston-street-bridge","tag-houston-street-viaduct","tag-maxie-johnson","tag-pettis-norman","tag-zarin-gracey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}