Page 4 The Skanner Portland & Seattle January 16, 2019
Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
For Many US Towns and Cities, Deciding Which Streets to Name
After MLK Reflects His Unfinished Work
Derek H. Alderman
The Conversation
ore than 1,000
streets in the
world bear the
name of slain civ-
il rights leader Martin
Luther King Jr.
At least 955 of those
streets can be found in
the U.S. They’re in 41
states, the District of Co-
M
lumbia and Puerto Rico.
Martin Luther King
streets cross a diver-
sity of neighborhoods
— rural and urban, resi-
dential and commercial,
large and small. The
range of these named
streets across the coun-
try makes it seem that
remembering and me-
morializing King was in-
evitable.
Yet, for some commu-
nities, the drive to name
public spaces in King’s
name has taken years as
well as heated debates,
boycotts, petition drives,
marches and even litiga-
tion.
My research over the
past 20 years has exam-
ined the role of African
Americans in the King
street-naming process.
I have found that the
nation’s Martin Luther
King streets — while
seen by some as cele-
brating the victories of a
movement that left rac-
ism safely in the past —
are one terrain on which
a continuing struggle for
civil rights has played
out.
It started in Chicago
The
geographic
“
For some communities, the
drive to name public spac-
es in King’s name has tak-
en years as well as heated
debates, boycotts, petition
drives, marches and even lit-
igation
range of King streets
reflects the influence of
King’s work. It also re-
flects the cultural and
political power of Af-
rican-Americans, who
are largely responsi-
ble for bringing street re-
naming proposals before
local city councils and
county commissions.
Just
months
after
King’s assassination in
1968, Chicago became
the first city to rename
a street for King. Alder-
man Leon Despres, a
White liberal and King
supporter, initially pro-
posed renaming a street
in the city’s central busi-
ness district. However,
Mayor Richard J. Daley
followed with a differ-
ent resolution. He want-
ed to place King’s name
on South Park Way, a
road more than 11 miles
long that runs strictly
through African-Ameri-
can communities on Chi-
cago’s South Side.
Daley was no fan of
King
and
infamous
for his shoot-to-kill or-
der against rioters after
the civil right leader’s
murder. When King
came to Chicago in 1966
to challenge segregat-
ed housing, he encoun-
tered great hatred from
taunting and violent
white crowds.
According to journal-
ists Adam Cohen and
Elizabeth Taylor, in their
book “American Pha-
raoh,” Mayor Daley was
seeking to mend his and
the city’s public image
in the lead up to the 1968
Democratic
National
Convention. Indeed, he
held the street renaming
dedication ceremony a
week before the conven-
tion. At the same time,
the mayor didn’t want to
alienate his political base
of racially hostile whites.
Two Black city alder-
men objected to Daley’s
proposal. One of them,
Alderman A.A. “Sammy”
Rayner, called the street
renaming
“tokenism”
and called on city leaders
to do “something bigger.”
He and William Cousins
Jr. suggested renaming a
proposed Crosstown Ex-
pressway. It was planned
to cut across, and unite,
different parts of Chica-
go. But the City Council
eventually approved the
mayor’s plan to rename
South Park Way as Dr.
Martin Luther King
Drive, which it remains
today.
Even now, 50 years lat-
er, proponents still must
fight to convince many
municipal officials that
King’s name belongs
on major roads.
More than just a name
Many of the activists
with whom I have spo-
ken view King streets as
a way to carry on King’s
unfinished work to cre-
ate racial equality and
economic justice in the
U.S.
Greater visibility, they
argue, can communicate
the legitimacy of King’s
message. More streets
named after the civil
rights leader, especially
in prominent parts of
town, can help educate a
wider white public of the
relevance and resonance
of civil rights and black
historical contributions.
Some cities honor King
with important thor-
oughfares that connect
a variety of neighbor-
hoods. These include Al-
buquerque, Austin, New
Bern in North Caro-
lina,
Oakland-North
Berkeley,
Savan-
nah and Tampa.
However, public oppo-
sition over the past half
century has led most
cities to rename small-
er streets or portions
of roads located entire-
ly within poor Afri-
can-American neighbor-
hoods. Opponents tend
to be White business
and property owners on
affected roads. In public,
most cite concerns over
cost and inconvenience.
Some suggest the associ-
ation with King’s name
will stigmatize their
neighborhood.
For example, when a
Chattanooga real estate
developer faced the pros-
pect of his new devel-
opment on West Ninth
Street being named for
King, he expressed con-
cern about renting offic-
es to potential clients be-
cause a MLK address, in
his words, would create
“racial overtones.” Sug-
gesting King’s name was
out of place on the road,
he said: “West Ninth
Street is not related to Dr.
See STREETS on page 5
