Even as new street signs go up on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, one city's racial divide is far from patched.
By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published December 7, 2003
ZEPHYRHILLS - Blanche Benford first met Bill Morehouse at a City Council meeting in October. They live in the same city, but their paths had never crossed.
She, a retired black woman, was there to support an initiative to rename a city street after Martin Luther King Jr. He, a white mortgage consultant, was there to oppose it.
After a long, tense discussion, City Council members that night voted to change Sixth Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, setting off a bitter controversy among residents sharply divided along racial lines.
The argument intensified so much that council members reconsidered the matter Nov. 10. Opponents argued about responsive government, property values and address changes, but the council voted with the same result.
Benford and Morehouse both came to the second meeting. They recognized each other. They knew why the other was there.
And they started to talk.
First, in the back of the council chambers. Then, out in the hall.
Benford told him the street should be named for King because black people asked for it. Morehouse questioned the value of a symbolic gesture that was making so many people unhappy.
"We were able to move above that conflict between us, and ended up laughing," said Benford, 59. "If I were to see him today, I would speak to him."
Morehouse, 44, came away with the same impression.
"You can disagree about certain things, but still people are people," he said. "You can still want to have a conversation and be friendly."
Benford admits that she assumes racism of anyone opposing the street renaming. She assumed it of Morehouse.
"When I first met him, I thought he was a sure-enough racist," she said. But their ensuing conversation changed her mind.
She summed up the significance of it this way: "When people talk face to face, most of us know what protocol is. We get things accomplished, and even though we may not agree, we can still come away not mad."
The Nov. 10 vote made the name change final. What follows now is hanging the new street signs and, city officials hope, some candid conversation in a community where distrust still lingers.
What transpired in Zephyrhills mirrors controversies that have played out in communities around the Tampa Bay area and the nation. Leaders in other cities say the only way to handle it is to keep people talking.
There's no shortage of strong opinions in Zephyrhills. The only clear pattern that has emerged is one of radical disagreement.
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City Manager Steve Spina left the Nov. 10 council meeting brainstorming ways to keep the conversation going. As the top official in a city that prides itself on a forward-thinking approach to governing, he says the moment is now to address the divisions.
"It's going to be a lot better for us if there are things smoldering if we come right out and fan the flames and discuss it," he said. "It's going to be out there, so I think we need to start addressing it."
He has started a list of people to form a task force to address community divisions. The group would include ministers, school officials, police officers and residents - of all races and backgrounds. He wants anyone who is interested to come forward and sign up.
"I don't want to just handpick it," he said. "I want some people to come on their own."
In a memo to council members after the second vote, Spina hailed the city's progressive reputation and warned that it could be threatened.
"It would be extremely disappointing to many residents if this issue is allowed to challenge and tarnish that reputation that many have worked so hard to earn," he wrote.
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Sandy Freedman was mayor of Tampa when leaders there decided in 1989 to rename Buffalo Avenue for King. The name change sparked, or at least revealed, serious racial problems and prompted Freedman and other activists to fan out to churches, civic centers and schools to try to calm the storm.
"You just had to do everything that you possibly could to keep people talking, just bringing people together," she said.
Freedman, who left office in 1995, advised that the civic conversation must continue even after the controversy dwindles.
"We go from crisis to crisis usually," she said. "Anybody who believes that we solved the racial divide in this community (Tampa) is dreaming."
And in Tampa, she said, the round table discussions didn't always unite people.
"I think they sometimes polarized people even further," she said. "But I think for many people it was helpful."
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Pat Borghy, who gives her age as "over 60," stood out at the Nov. 10 council meeting. While nearly every other white person who got up to speak opposed the name change, Borghy offered a different view.
She said Sixth Avenue isn't grand enough, prominent enough to honor King.
She didn't feel strongly about whether the city should name a street for the slain civil rights leader. But if it was going to be done, it should be done properly.
She concluded saying, "This is one racist little town."
Reached last week, Borghy said picking a street in a depressed part of town does little to improve race relations. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue spans nearly all of Zephyrhills from east to west. It ends outside the city limits at the Chancey Road bypass.
"I feel that when people want to honor Martin Luther King, they put the honors in the wrong places," she said. "They have to go through the worst part of town.
"Sixth Avenue doesn't go anywhere. It goes out to the bypass, and the only people who use the bypass are the people who live here."
Nothing less prominent than U.S. 301 or State Road 54 should be chosen, Borghy said.
"If you're going to do it, do it right," she said. "And I would say the same thing if it was going to be for President Kennedy."
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Lynda Perry prides herself on being a member of one of Zephyrhills' original black families. She talks about how her mother worked for pennies an hour as domestic help for prominent white people.
Perry is also proud of the tidy, picturesque lawn in front of her house, which corners MLK Avenue. She says she and her husband are the only black people for several blocks. She says she loves her neighborhood and her city.
Like many residents, she was stunned by the anger that erupted over the name change.
"I am really hurt. To think that the people that you see every day - they smile at you and shake your hand ..." Perry trailed off.
"So many people came out with hatred. Then it became a cause to me."
Perry said she doesn't socialize much with white people. Then again, she doesn't socialize much at all. But she believes black people in many ways do not feel part of Zephyrhills.
"I think they just feel they're a small segment of a small city that has been forgotten about," she said.
One predominantly black neighborhood has been frequently mentioned throughout the discussion for its location "on the other side of the tracks." It's called Lincoln Heights, an area off Martin Luther King Avenue just outside the city that is notorious for drug-related crime.
Perry said the neighborhood's reputation is accurate. "It's just a blighted area without hope."
But it also is home to some longtime residents.
"You have a lot of prominent blacks that live across there," she said. People "who don't like to see someone run up to your car to try to sell you drugs, but who are prosperous."
It's that feeling of exclusion, Perry said, that makes adopting the King street name so important to some people.
"It's a small price to pay for the blood, sweat and tears in this town," she said. "That's the only thing we have. We have nothing here we can identify with.
"This city owed it to the blacks. It actually owed them."
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Morehouse, who bought his house on Martin Luther King Avenue three years ago, likes the idea of Zephyrhills honoring King. He said he thinks a federal holiday is already a high honor but understands the desire for local recognition.
"I agree that Dr. King should be honored; however, can anyone honestly say that Dr. King is not already being honored?" he asked.
What he does not support, he said, is the council's willingness to upset the majority.
"I feel it is something that has affected so many people in a negative way and only a few people in a positive way," he said.
Morehouse said his initial objection to the name change stemmed from the change to his address. He liked the easy, concise Sixth Avenue.
But as the controversy progressed, he said, he grew to resent the council's tactics and the implication that all opponents were bigots.
"Those who opposed it were made to feel like a bunch of bad guys who don't want to honor Dr. King and should be ashamed of themselves," he said. "And believe me, those who opposed it because of racism should be ashamed of themselves.
"It's obviously a sore spot," he continued. "So why just ram salt into the sore spot? Let's explore why, but at the same time let's not do it."
* * *
Some people who objected to the name change were satisfied after the final vote because they felt council members at least heard their arguments. Many were not.
"If they had listened, they would have rescinded the vote," Morehouse said. "I'm still pretty upset that they did it, and the way they did it without even considering other options."
But as the initial anger surrounding the issue tapers, Henry Carley says the city has a tremendous opportunity.
Carley is past president of what was then the Tampa branch of the NAACP and was involved in the Buffalo Avenue name change.
"With the dialogue that follows now, I think it's going to help a great deal," he said. "And maybe in the next two years, nobody will think the worse of it."
He said Zephyrhills has a size advantage over Tampa.
"I'm kind of optimistic because it is a small community," he said. "I think the people have the opportunity to address the issue in an intimate setting."
City officials should take the initiative to find other ways to smooth the divide, he said: review police protection, road upkeep and water and sewer services to make sure all neighborhoods are being treated equally.
Freedman agreed.
"Government has a tremendous role to play irrespective of street naming," the former Tampa mayor said.
