Source: REPORTERS ASSOCIES / Getty
Back in January, Kansas City decided to rename The Paseo after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but now, the decision has been reversed.
“Kansas City voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved removing 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,” NBC reported this morning, adding “Unofficial results showed the proposal to remove King’s name received nearly 70 percent of the vote, with just over 30 percent voting to retain King’s name.”
In case you aren’t familiar, the site states The Paseo is a 10-mile, mostly Black boulevard on the east side of Kansas City. And according to NBC, honoring MLK by renaming the neighborhood, has been a long time coming…
“The debate over the name of the 10-mile boulevard on the city’s mostly black east side 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 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.”
We’re not at all surprised that wypipo are fighting the decision. In fact, they went as far as to protest at a Black church…
“Emotions reached a peak Sunday, when members of the ‘Save the Paseo’ group staged a silent protest at a get-out-the-vote rally at a black church for people wanting to keep the King name. They walked into the Paseo Baptist Church and stood along its two aisles. 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. The Save the Paseo group collected 2,857 signatures in April — far more than the 1,700 needed — to have the name change put to a public vote.”
Save The Paseo folks are basically claiming “All Lives Matter” …
“Diane Euston, a leader of the Save the Paseo group, said that The Paseo ‘doesn’t just mean something to one community in Kansas City.’ ‘It means something to everyone in Kansas City,’ she said. ‘It holds kind of a special place in so many people’s hearts and memories. It’s not just historical on paper, it’s historical in people’s memory. It’s very important to Kansas City.'”
Stay tuned.
