Kansas City votes to remove Martin Luther King's name from historic street

[pnwmom]

21. Here's another point of view,

Many of the opponents were black residents who opposed by-passing the normal process, which would have involved them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/mlk-paseo-election-kansas-city.html

“Dr. King’s dream is real,” said Alissia Canady, a black former councilwoman who opposed naming the street for Dr. King. “And black voters won’t allow anybody, black or otherwise, to disenfranchise them in Kansas City.”

SNIP

The monthslong battle had incited an unlikely political battle in which black people for and against keeping Dr. King’s name on the street claimed they were on the side of racial justice.

Dr. Howard’s organization had led a petition drive last year to get a ballot measure allowing voters to choose whether to rename Paseo Boulevard after Dr. King. That drive failed, but the city’s elected officials stepped in and voted, 8-4, to change the name anyway. In the process, the Council did not adhere to an ordinance requiring most of a street’s residents to approve a renaming.

That amounted to “prominent African-American leaders disenfranchising black property owners and voters,” Ms. Canady said.