SALON

Thursday, Jan 12, 2012 6:27 PM UTC

Board Approves Naming Memphis Street For MLK

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Board Approves Naming Memphis Street For MLKA woman waits to cross the street at the corner of Linden Avenue and Main Street on Wednesday Jan. 11, 2012 in Memphis, Tenn. A proposal to rename nine blocks of Linden Avenue to Dr. Martin Luther King Avenue is expected to pass Thursday when it comes before the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board. As of Tuesday the board hadn’t received any comment opposing the honor for King, who was killed by assassin James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)(Credit: AP)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Memphis officials on Thursday approved naming a city street after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., nearly 44 years after the civil rights leader was killed in the city.

The 10 members of the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board voted unanimously to re-name a nine-block downtown stretch as Dr. Martin Luther King Avenue. Previously called Linden Avenue, it runs in front of the FedExForum, where the Memphis Grizzlies play their home games, and parallel to Beale Street, the famous tourist drag.

The street also runs near the Clayborn Temple, where King rallied with striking sanitation workers days before he was assassinated by James Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. King also led a march on Linden Avenue during the strike.

The city already had a section of Interstate 240 dedicated to King, but the naming of a prominent street in the city’s tourist district is being seen as a symbol that the city is finally taking steps to heal the wound caused by the assassination

A ceremony is planned for April 4 to honor King and unveil the new street signs. About 900 U.S. cities already have city streets named for King.

“The world was looking at Memphis to make its mark,” said Berlin Boyd, a former city councilman who made the proposal to rename Linden Avenue

The board’s vote is final, but there still may be more work to be done.

Gregory Grant, a member of the National Action Network, said he supported extending King Avenue beyond the nine blocks approved Thursday. Leaders of churches that sit along Linden Avenue east of the nine-block section also support an extension.

“It would be an act on the part of this committee that shows we are healing,” Grant told the board.

A question still remains as to what the street signs will say. There is a concern that “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.” would be too long, and it is possible the name could be truncated to “Dr. M. L. King Jr. Ave.”

More Adrian Sainz.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations