On May 31st, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Omar Narvaez of Dallas, who represents District 6 on the city council, unveiled street sign toppers in honor of Rosa Lopez, a lesbian Latina community activist who passed away in 2017. The street sign toppers are located in Lopez’s West Dallas neighborhood of Los Altos. Lopez was a pioneering figure in the LGBTQ+ community and a pillar of the Los Altos neighborhood, where she worked to bring affordable housing to Dallas’s lower-income West Dallas neighborhoods.
Narvaez initiated the process of honoring Lopez with the street sign toppers, and the community stepped up to help. Mary Velez, board president of Vecinos Unidos, a nonprofit that Lopez established to bring affordable housing to West Dallas, said that the effort to get the sign toppers approved was a big one, with many neighbors signing petitions, writing letters, and speaking at city council meetings.
Lopez’s work on affordable housing took up much of her time, but she also found time to open an ice cream shop called Suenos Sabrosos (Sweet Dreams) in the Bishop Arts District neighborhood where she lived. Her shop became a hub for political discussions and a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Lopez was also a trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community, having established Dallas’s first organization for Latina lesbians, Lesbianas Latinas de Dallas, in 1996. She frequently appeared on a gay bilingual Latino radio show to discuss issues facing Latina lesbians and worked with the producer of the show and the owner of Arte Facto, a gay Latino alternative art space in Old East Dallas, to organize cultural events featuring poetry readings and Latina lesbian folk singers.
In her final years, Lopez became a member of a new LGBTQ+ Latino group called LULAC 4871 – The Dallas Rainbow Council, which promoted LULAC’s national and statewide missions with an emphasis on the LGBTQ+ Latino community. According to Narvaez, this is the first time the city of Dallas has honored a female, Latina, and LGBTQ+ woman with honorary street sign toppers.
Lopez’s legacy lives on through the street sign toppers in West Dallas and the scholarships that have been created in her honor. Her dedication to the affordable housing cause and her tireless work in the LGBTQ+ community make her a true inspiration and a role model for generations to come.