Urban streets named for MLK still struggle

Associated Press ^ | Jan 19, 2014 12:41 PM EST | Alan Scher Zagier

[Olog-hai]

A walk down the 6-mile city street named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. yields plenty of images that would surely unsettle the civil rights leader: shuttered storefronts, open-air drug markets and a glut of pawn shops, quickie check-cashing providers and liquor stores.

The urban decay along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in St. Louis can be found in other major American cities, from Houston and Milwaukee to the nation’s capital.

“It’s a national problem,” said Melvin White, a 46-year-old postal worker in St. Louis and founder of a 3-year-old nonprofit group that is trying to restore King’s legacy on asphalt. “Dr. King would be turning over in his grave.”

Nearly three decades into the observance of Monday’s federal holiday, the continuing decline of the most visible symbols of King’s work has White and others calling for a renewed commitment to the more than 900 streets nationwide named in the Atlanta native’s honor. …

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I always thought that city fathers named streets MLK Boulevard in a kind gesture to inform out-of-towners where the dangerous part of town was.

[napscoordinator]

Years ago, Tulsa OK designated the northern bypass I-244, as the MLK Memorial Expressway, and placed BIG signs up at each end of it.
Every time we went by those signs, the number of bullet holes had increased till the signs looked like Swiss cheese and were replaced and put on overhead signs. (I did not put any of those holes in the signs).

I can’t imagine the KKK in Oklahoma would want to see a MLK sign so this does not surprise me.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I honestly don't know why they seem to pick the worst street in town for Martin Luther King Street.

They are trying to warn out-of-towners where the dangerous part of town is.

[P-Marlowe]

Can you imagine Liberal Leo DeCaprio doing a hit piece on Martin Luther King Street?

[ClearBlueSky]

I can tell you the one in New Orleans is a crime-ridden ghetto. You only go there if you’re suicidal-or well armed, because the residents of the area sure are!

[Benito Cereno]

The Milky Way

[logic101.net]

trying to restore King’s legacy...

The first step would be to start to bring out the truth. The Dims were the ones opposing civil rights. King did not advocate the welfare state. King advocated equal opportunity. King did not advocate lighter sentences for blacks who commit crimes because of skin color. King advocated a color blind society.

On another note, all of today’s problems with race relations are the direct result of yesterday’s “solutions”.

[napscoordinator]

That is true. lol.

[forgotten man]

That area around Santa Barbara Blvd and Crenshaw Blvd is Lemeirt Park. My family lived there until the late 1950’s. It was a great neighborhood until the ethnic makeup changed. Now Lemeirt Park is the “cultural center of Afrocentricity.” It as though the people who built that area never existed.
If not for the Koreans and their shops the area would be even worse.

[TalBlack]

Streets called ‘MLK’ will ALWAYS struggle as long ad Blaxks remain on the Democrat Plantation.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Is there at least one that isn’t this way?

[jttpwalsh]

Same thing happened to my folks’ neighborhood, in Syracuse :( My cousin drove down Midland Ave a few years ago, and she was too traumatized to describe it with more than “Trust me, it’s bad”. On a side note, whenever someone questions the need for The Second Amendment, I like to roll the Youtube video of the Korean merchants on their rooftop, well armed, and unmolested, while the neighborhood is burning, during the Rodney King riots.

[Jeff Chandler]

Sometimes they paint murals to warn tourists.

,

[I want the USA back]

Why did they choose certain streets to name after MLK? Because of the high number of residents there belonging to one certain victim group.

Why are those streets full of crime?
Because of the high number of residents there belonging to one certain victim group.

[easternsky]

California Mlk streets same way.

[Celtic Conservative]

I think there was a posting on youtube some time ago. It was a routine by black comedian Chris Rock about if you found yourself on MLK in just about any city in the country it was a guarantee you were in the sh!tty part of town. It might still be up.

CC

[Nowhere Man]

I know if I find myself on any MLK Blvd., I make sure my doors are locked.

On Pittsburgh's North Side, we have a MLKjr elementary school. I remember watching them build it when I was a little kid in the early 1970's, it opened in 1973 IIRC. I'm sure you got a lot of schools named after him around the nation. I do remember asking Grandma who was Martin Luther King when I was that age, she just called him an agitator and a communist. I'm a Glenn Beck listener but I think Beck idolizes him too much, I guess because before I would drink the Kool-Aid, I want to know more about MLKjr, you know, like the equivalent of kicking the tires, looking under the hood, the frame underneath and so on to use a car analogy. MLKjr did say a lot of right things and so on, but still there is a side of me that is skeptical on him when I've read articles where he dissed Barry Goldwater and advocated wealth redistribution.

[Nowhere Man]

One more thing, I keep the doors on my Hyundai Sonata locked when I drive near there. I’m glad the top speed is 132 MPH with my little 4-banger in case if I have to get outta there. ;)

[niteowl77]

Sometimes they paint murals to warn tourists.

So true! Anytime I see one of those, I assume that some "organized multicultural entity" (i.e.: the usual "whitey sucks" crowd) has gotten a couple of gallons of paint and local media coverage to make a wall in a declining neighborhood look crappy in a different way.

Mr. niteowl77

[Chode]

same thing happened in Ithaca - The City of EVIL when the businesses on State Street(one of the main streets in the city) said they weren't about to change all their legal paperwork and letterhead etc for somebody with NO connection to the city whatsoever...