There's no good excuse for opposing streets named after King
By HOWARD TROXLER
Published November 17, 2003
I could go the rest of my life without hearing another group of white people explaining all their good, practical reasons for not wanting to name a street in their city after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Good grief, to hear them squawk, you would think they were being asked to pay reparations or something. It's a street name.
Always the same kind of stuff. Inconvenient to the property owners. Unfair to the people who have to change their addresses. Confusing to the public, especially if it's a numbered street. (Cities rename streets all the time, but, for some reason, "Oak" and the like rarely cause the same ruckus.)
Sometimes, a slightly more honest fear slips out: Property values will go down because the King name signals a bad neighborhood. (All the more reason for cities to choose their biggest and best streets, not just their poorest areas, for the honor.)
You know what would come as a sweet relief, a welcome break in the monotony? It would be great to hear a group of black citizens fight a King renaming for the same reasons.
"This has nothing to do with race," they might protest. "We like living on Oak Street. Why should we be inconvenienced for the sake of somebody else's political correctness? Why don't we just rename a little park?"
Right.
In recent years, several Tampa Bay communities have been through the same kind of flap that now puts Zephyrhills in eastern Pasco County in the news.
When it was Tampa's turn in 1989, it did the job right. Tampa just reared back and renamed Buffalo Avenue, one of its biggest and most important east-west thoroughfares.
There were all the same arguments back then, too, and in truth, few streets around here had more people affected by a name change. Yet the city and Hillsborough County made their decision and made it stick, even though they had to keep replacing signs destroyed by vandals.
Today, it's fairly rare to hear the street called "Buffalo," and even then, that's more likely the slip of an old-timer than any conscious protest.
St. Petersburg tried to make everybody happy in 1987 by giving its Ninth Street a "dual" name. Even that copout took a marathon City Council meeting and a 5-4 vote.
Not until earlier this year did the city drop the "Ninth." So far, there do not appear to be large traffic jams of confused people, unable to figure out how to get from Eighth to 10th.
Other communities in our area that have renamed streets, with varying degrees of controversy, include Brooksville, Clearwater, Dade City, Inverness, Safety Harbor and Tarpon Springs. Dunedin and Largo now are considering ways to honor King.
But no place in this area has been more divided over the King issue lately than Zephyrhills. On Oct. 27, the Zephyrhills City Council decided to rename Sixth Avenue. About 20 people spoke at that meeting, most opposed to the change, but the council approved it 4-1.
After the fact, opponents of the change organized. They gathered almost 500 petition signatures. That is an interesting number, considering that the street in question has 111 parcels with 90 owners. Even if you allow those few the "inconvenience" arguments, most of the signers simply oppose naming the street for King.
The fuss caused council member Cathi Compton to try to reconsider the vote. But last Monday, in front of a citizen crowd of about 250, the rest of the council members stayed by their original vote.
Of the residents who spoke against the name, one guy, admittedly, offered the only new, non-race-related reason I've ever heard in this debate. It was not King's struggle for racial justice that was his problem, but King's stance against the Vietnam War: "Men died because he spoke against the war instead of supporting this country," Ben Youmans said.
Now, I disagree with the gentleman and believe that protesting the government can be a high form of patriotism, but at least he came up with something fresh.
Listen. Renaming streets after King has become a standard way to honor him. Trying to pretend there is some principle at stake in fighting it is a no-win cause. All it does is draw embarrassment to the people doing it and to the community in which it occurs.
