announced the parking structure on Merrick Drive would no longer be referred to by George Merrick's name, but that the Solomon G. Merrick Building named in honor of George Merrick’s father would remain, and "as for the roadway, the renaming of George E. Merrick Street goes beyond the purview of the Board of Trustees." The university's decision was a response to a petition created by alumni and students in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, titled "Rename University of Miami facilities with a racist history." The petition alleged George Merrick "boldly held and acted upon, racist segregationist beliefs throughout his life." The petition did not to mention that George Merrick faced criticism from the white community, when he let the black community's housing cross over the Color line (racism), which violated the segregationist laws of the time. The petition did mention Merrick looked up to his father, but did not mention that his father, Solomon G. Merrick, was an abolitionist, and a reverend with one of the first American Protestant denominations to take a strong stand against slavery in the 1850's, nor did it state that George Merrick lived in a society where segregation was legally required because of Jim Crow laws, laws which predated his birth (b.1886) and superseded his death (d.1942). In the early to mid-twentieth century, government sought to improve living conditions and public health and safety through Slum clearance in the United States, as seen with the Federal Housing Act of 1937, which defined a slum as "any area where dwellings predominate which by reason of dilapidation, over-crowding, faulty arrangement or design, lack of ventilation, light or sanitation facilities, or any combination of these factors, are detrimental to safety, health, or morals." This was relevant to Merrick who as a boy experienced a yellow fever epidemic and forced quarantine when he was moving to South Florida. In 1937, Merrick's proposed "Negro Resettlement Plan," as part of the slum clearance laws promulgated under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, would have relocated Black residents to new locations outside of their current segregated housing in Miami, but the resettlement plan was never implemented. Merrick recognized and lamented that the living conditions for the black community were unfair, and he advocated for the black community's access to water and "water use," their ability to grow and access their own fresh food from their own property, and their right to larger