Voters dump MLK name from street
By Margaret Stafford ASSOCIATED PRESS
People rally at a church in Kansas City, Mo. In January, the City Council voted to rename one of the city's historic boulevards, The Paseo, after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but a referendum reversed that decision.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved removing Dr. Martin Luther King’s name from one of the city’s most historic boulevards, less than a year after the City Council decided to rename The Paseo for the civil rights icon.
Unofficial results showed the proposal to remove King’s name received nearly 70 percent of the vote.
The debate over the name of the 10-mile boulevard began shortly after the council’s decision in January to rename The Paseo for King. Civil rights leaders who pushed for the change celebrated when the street signs went up, believing they had finally won a decades-long battle to honor King, which appeared to end Kansas City’s reputation as one of the largest U.S. cities in the country without a street named for him.
But a group of residents intent on keeping The Paseo name began collecting petitions to put the name change on the ballot and achieved that goal in April.
The campaign has been divisive, with supporters of King’s name accusing opponents of being racist, while supporters of The Paseo name say city leaders pushed the name change through without following proper procedures and ignored The Paseo’s historic value.
Emotions reached a peak Sunday, when members of the “Save the Paseo” group staged a silent protest at a black church during a get-out-the-vote rally for people wanting to keep the King name. The protesters stood silently and did not react to several speakers that accused them of being disrespectful in a church, but they also refused requests from preachers to sit down.
Many supporters of the Martin Luther King name suggested the opponents are racist, saying Save the Paseo is a mostly white group and that many of its members don’t live on the street, which runs north to south through a largely black area of the city.
Supporters of the Paseo name rejected the allegations of racism and opposed the name change because they say the council did not follow charter procedures and didn’t notify most residents on the street about the proposal.
Paseo supporters said it is a historic name for the city’s first boulevard, which was completed in 1899. The north end of the boulevard is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.