I’m sure that Kansas City is being dragged through the ‘racist’ mud this morning on social media after 70% voted to remove Martin Luther King Jr.’s name from a historic boulevard in yesterday’s elections. But the story isn’t as simple as it might sound:
FOX NEWS – Nearly 70 percent of voters in a Kansas City, Mo. municipal election on Tuesday approved removing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s name from a historic boulevard.
The thoroughfare, known as The Paseo, had been named for the late civil rights icon in an 8-4 city council vote in January, FOX 4 in Kansas City reported.
But soon after the vote, a movement called Save The Paseo gathered nearly 3,000 signatures from residents hoping to preserve the boulevard’s long history and original name by putting the question on the ballot.
What really happened was that voters were unhappy that the city council just up and renamed their already historic thoroughfare in January. And city council only changed it because Kansas City doesn’t have a street honoring MLK.
Many residents who live along the 10-mile Paseo reportedly said they felt left out of the name-change process.
Kansas City is one of the few large cities without a street honoring King, according to FOX 4.
Good for the people of Kansas City for using a referendum to undo this. If I lived there I’d probably have voted the same way. There must be other streets in the city that would be far less controversial to change.