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CREATING A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF MEMORY IN THE SOUTH: THE POLITICS OF (RE)NAMING STREETS AFTER MARTIN LUTHER KING. JR.

by

DEREK HILTON ALDERMAN

B.A.. Georgia Southern College, 1990 M.A.. The University of Georgia. 1993

A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

ATHENS, GEORGIA 1998


UMI Number: 9908580

Copyright 1998 by Alderman, Derek Hilton All rights reserved.

UMI Microform 9908580 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

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© 1998 Derek Hilton Alderman All Rights Reserved


CREATING A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF MEMORY IN THE SOUTH: THE POLITICS OF (RE)NAMING STREETS AFTER MARTIN LUTHER KING. JR.

by

DEREK HILTON ALDERMAN

Approved:

fe/'/qg Date

Approved:

Dean o f the Graduate School

"Yv i r (

i

Date


DEREK HILTON ALDERMAN Creating a New Geography of Memory in the South: The Politics of (Re)Naming Streets After Martin Luther King, Jr. (Under the direction of ANDREW J. HEROD) This dissertation explores, theoretically and empirically, the emerging cultural geography of (re)naming streets after slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Jr. (MLK) in the American South and. in particular. Georgia. In the last ten years or so. the South has seen tremendous challenges and changes to its commemorative landscapes, with many inspired and mobilized by the region's black population. (Re)naming streets after King represents one of the most widespread yet under analyzed of the South's new geographies of memory. While reflecting the increased political and cultural power of blacks, these named streets are often sites of struggle for African-Americans as they attempt to (re)define King's “place” within the cultural landscape and collective memory of the post-Civil Rights Era South. The dissertation has two primary objectives: (1) to identify and analyze the spatial distribution and intra-urban characteristics of streets named after King using electronic phone directories and other digital data sources: and (2) to articulate a theory for explaining the politics of MLK street (re)naming and then evaluate this theory by conducting case studies of two small cities in Georgia. Statesboro (Bulloch County) and Eatonton (Putnam County). In developing this theoretical framework. I suggest that African-Americans face four primary struggles in attempting to (re)name a street after King, struggles concerning: (1) the politics of naming places; (2) the politics of memory; (3) the politics o f geographic scale; and (4) the politics of public space. Underlying all these themes is a recognition of the hybrid nature of cultural identities and struggles. Through an analysis of MLK street (re)naming, this dissertation builds a greater understanding of: (1) the role and struggles of AfricanAmericans in reshaping urban cultural landscapes; (2) how geography constitutes and structures struggles over commemoration and identity within society, particularly


southern society; (3) the necessity of examining the intra-urban locational context of place naming; and (4) the position of place naming within ongoing struggles over racial identity and the meaning and use of public space.

INDEX WORDS:

Place naming, geography of memory, geographic scale. Martin Luther King. American South, Public space. Cultural geography, street names. African-American. Political geography


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First. I would like to thank my family for their support throughout this endeavor. This dissertation is dedicated to my wife. Donna. Without her patience and encouragement. I could have never realized my goal o f earning a doctorate. I acknowledge my Ph.D. advisor. Dr. Andrew J. Herod, for his moral and intellectual support in completing the dissertation. I consider it an honor to have been his student and this work would not have had its theoretical rigor without his influence. Appreciation is also extended to other members of my doctoral committee. Drs. James O. Wheeler. Thomas Hodler. Barry Schwartz, and Melissa Wright. Finally. I am indebted to Dr. Daniel B. Good o f Georgia Southern University. In addition to being a great friend, colleague, and co-author on other projects. Dan was instrumental in helping me carry out the Statesboro case study, acting as host into his community.

iv

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S .................................................

iv

LIST OF T A B L E S ...................................................................................................viii LIST OF F I G U R E S ....................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1 IN T R O D U C T IO N ...........................................................................I 1.1

Introduction

.

1.2

A

.

.

.

.

.

1.3

Changing Geographies of Memory in the South

9

1.4

The Politics of Commemorating King

14

1.5

The Need for Research on MLK Street (Re)Naming

23

1.6

Toward a More Critical Cultural Geography of Commemorative

New Geography of Commemorative Place-Naming

Place Naming .

2

.

.

.

. .

.

.

.

I 6

.

25

1.7

Objectives of Dissertation

.

27

1.8

Larger Significance/Contributions of Dissertation

29

1.9

Organization of Dissertation

30

(RE)NAMING STREETS AFTER MLK, JR.: WHERE THE POLITICS OF MEMORY, SCALE, AND PUBLIC SPACE MEET

31

2.1

Purpose of Chapter

31

2.2

Defining the Politics of MLK Street (Re)Naming

32

2.3

The “New” Cultural Geography

.

.

.

.

v


44

3

2. 4

Toward a '‘New” Cultural Geography of Place Names

52

2.5

The Politics of Naming Places

54

2.6

The Politics of Memory.

59

2.7

The Politics of Scale

69

2.8

The Politics of Reconstructing Public Space .

73

DOCUMENTING AND ANALYZING THE DISTRIBUTION OF MLK STREET (RE)NAMING...................................................................................79 3.1

Purpose of Chapter

3.2

Stump's Study of MLK Street (Re)Naming .

3.3

Data and Methods: Electronic Approaches to Place Name Research.

.

.

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.

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.

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.

.

.

.

. .

.

.

80

.

84

3.4

Research Questions

3.5

National Distribution of MLK Street (Re )Naming

3.6

PhoneDisc Versus National Five-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory.

3.7

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

87 88

.

92

.

.

.

. 9

4

Residential/Business Context of MLK Street (Re)Naming: A Closer Look at the South.

3.9

.

.

Regional Variation in MLK Street (Re)Naming: The Dominance of the South

3.8

.

.

79

.

.

.

.

.

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MLK Street (Re)Naming Along the Southern Urban Hierarchy.

96 100

3.10 MLK Street (Re)Naming and Relative Size of African-American Population

.

.

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.

.

.

.

103

3.11 The Intra-Urban Locational Context of MLK Streets

106

3.12 Temporal Patterns in MLK Street Naming in Georgia

119


123

INTRODUCTION OF CASE STUDIES .

Purpose of Chapter

4. 2

Methodology .

4. 3

Statesboro-Bulloch County Case

131

4.4

Eatonton-Putnam County Case

151

.

.

.

.

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ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDIES 5.1

Purpose of Chapter

.

5. 2

Politics of Naming Places

5.3

Politics of Memory

5.4

Politics of Scale

5.5

Politics of Public Space

.

126

.

. .

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123

4.1

. .

.

. .

.

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169

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169

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170 184

.

.

. .

. .

.

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195

.

202

C O N C L U S I O N S ............................................................... 6.1

Summary of Findings and Contributions

6.2

Policy Implications

6. 3

Directions for Future Research

.

.

.

210 210

.

.

R E N C E S ............................................................................


220 222

226

LIST OF TABLES Table

Page Comparison of MLK Street Searches. PhoneDisc versus Postal Zip Code Directory . . . . . . .

93

3.2

Regional Variation in MLK Street (Re)Naming, 1996

95

3.3

Comparison of Socio-Economic Conditions. MLK Census Areas versus Respective Cities

108

Twenty Establishments Most Frequently Found on MLK Streets in the South

114

3.1

3.4

4.1

Population Characteristics of Statesboro and Bulloch County. Georgia. 1980-90 ........................................................................................ 133

4.2

Leading Name Suggestions for Perimeter Road. Bulloch County. Georgia ■ •

1-14

Characteristics of Streets Suggested to be Renamed After Martin Luther King. Jr.. Bulloch County. Georgia .

149

Population Characteristics of Eatonton and Putnam County. Georgia. 1980-90...................................................................................................

153

4.3

4.4


LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1

Page Jacqueline Smith Protesting National Civil Rights Museum. Memphis. Tennessee.

13

1.2

Regional Differences in Public Admiration of Martin Luther King. Jr.. 1996 ....................................................................................................16

1.3

Distribution of MLK Streets in the U.S.. 1987 (after Stump 1988) .

24

3.1

Distribution of MLK Streets in the U.S.. 1996

90

3.2

Percentage of Places with a Street Named After MLK. Jr.. 1996

91

3.3

Residential and Business Composition of MLK Streets versus '“Main" Streets. 1996 . . . . . . . .

99

3.4

Distribution of MLK Street (Re)naming in South by City Size

102

3.5

Distribution of MLK Street (Re)Naming in South by Relative Size of City’s Black Population. . . . .

105

Comparison of Business Employment Structure, MLK Streets versus Region . .

117

Comparison of Estimated Business Sales Volume, MLK Streets versus Region

118

3.8

Temporal Patterns in MLK Street (Re)Naming in Georgia .

121

4.1

Location of Statesboro and Bulloch County, Georgia

132

4.2

Location of Eatonton and Putnam County, Georgia .

152

4.3

Uncle Remus Mural on Jefferson Avenue, Eatonton, Georgia

158

4.4

Promotional Pamphlet for Madison, Georgia.

159

3.6

3.7

.

.

.

ix


4.5

Location of Martin Luther King. Jr. Drive and Alice Walker Drive. Eatonton. Georgia.


Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1

Introduction Cultural identities are constructed (and reconstructed) around collective

memories of the past (Healey 1991; Edensor 1997). Within contemporary America, racial and ethnic minorities are struggling to achieve a greater cultural recognition and identity by creating new "geographies of memory." These geographies o f memory are public memorials, monuments, and sites of commemoration that affirm the historical importance of minority groups and replace traditional, white-dominated conceptions of the past that frequently ignore these contributions. According to recent work by Joseph Tilden Rhea (1997), these commemorative changes are the product o f what he termed the “Race Pride Movement." Rhea (1997) has argued that while the Civil Rights Movement enlarged political and legal inclusion, it did not explicitly address the issue of minority cultural representation. The Race Pride Movement targets these unresolved issues of cultural exclusion, particularly the exclusion of minority experiences from the American historical consciousness. While not seen as a distinct social movement before now, the Race Pride Movement represents a diffuse movement o f relatively autonomous activists using direct political action to challenge and change the public representation of their pasts within cultural landscapes (Rhea 1997: 6). Of the various groups that make up the Race Pride Movement, African-Americans have had the greatest impact in transforming American memory and space. At the same time, however, they have also faced some of the greatest opposition. This dissertation focuses on the struggles of black southerners to create a new geography of memory through (re)naming streets after slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. 1


0

Although not addressed by Rhea, place (re)naming is an important geographic and symbolic platform for the Race Pride Movement. While still seen as somewhat passe, recent studies suggest that the analysis of place names can become an important part of critical cultural studies and provide important insights into past and contemporary social relations. As I establish in the next section of this chapter. African-Americans and other minorities are increasingly using place (re)naming as a means of redefining public space and memory. Cohen and KJiot (1992: 657) have described recent changes in the patterns o f place naming and their relationship to the cultural politics of racial and ethnic identity in America thus: In the U.S.. the long-accepted tradition of the American melting pot has been challenged by African-American and Hispanic cultural/political ideologies. Multiculturaiism is beginning to make its impress, not just through school curricula, bilingualism, foodstores, the media, dress, music, and holidays, but also through the very nature of certain central city and rural landscapes and the place-names they bear. Streets, squares, public buildings, housing developments, reservations, signs and monuments, parts of cities and even cities have been named or renamed to reflect minority aspirations, and thus to reshape America's nationhood. Amidst this new geography of place naming described by Cohen and fCliot (1992), commemorative place naming, particularly street (re)naming, is emerging as a common yet controversial trend in the cultural and political geography of cities. Although long neglected by scholars, recent geographical research has begun to establish the ideological importance of street naming (Yeoh 1992; Azaryahu 1996; Yeoh 1996; Azaryahu 1997). Azaryahu (1997) has perhaps stated the case best: "In the jungle of modem cities, street names are more than a means o f facilitating spatial orientation. Often they are laden with political meanings and represent a certain theory o f the world that is associated with and supportive of the hegemonic socio-political order (p. 480).” As Azaryahu (1996) also pointed out, commemorative street naming is particularly powerful and contested because it not only participates in the construction and reification


of a selective vision of the past but incorporates that version of history into the spatial practices of everyday life. This dissertation suggests that commemorative street (re)naming is an important component in the new geographies of memory being constructed by African-Americans and. therefore, can provide insight into the importance of space to the politics of rewriting identity and memory in America. Although not confined to one particular racial/ethnic group or region of the United States. African-Americans in the American South have proven to be some of the most active participants in the Race Pride Movement. In the last ten years or so. the South has seen tremendous challenges and changes to its commemorative landscapes, with many inspired and mobilized by the region's black population. On one hand, there has been a de-Confederatization o f commemorative landscapes, driven by public debate over the legitimacy of displaying symbols that commemorate and celebrate the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy (Leib 1995; Alderman 1996). On the other hand, we have also seen the African-Americanization of commemorative landscapes. While not limited to one historical period or theme, these new commemorative spaces often commemorate the struggles, ideas, and figures o f the Civil Rights Movement. As will be explained later in this chapter, the de-Confederatization and African-Americanization of southern commemoration has led to intense cultural conflict in many cases. Unfortunately, political commentators, other scholars, and, even, geographers have tended to analyze such processes in a rather aspatial manner (e.g., Webster and Webster 1994; Leib 1995) and have not recognized how central geography is to these cultural struggles over identity and commemoration. In this dissertation, I suggest and illustrate that geography plays a constitutive role in struggles over the representation of African-American history and identity in the South. One of the most widespread, yet under-analyzed, of the South’s new geographies o f memory has been the renaming of streets after slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK). While reflecting the increased political and cultural power of blacks,


4 these named streets are often sites of struggle for African-Americans as they attempt to (re)define King's “place” in the country's cultural landscape and collective memory. Controversy over street naming is not simply a matter of a community determining the appropriateness of memorializing King, although this issue is certainly important. Rather, in the case of street (re)naming, determining the appropriateness of commemorating King is also a struggle over where to commemorate him, that is. selecting the most appropriate street to (re)name or, to put it another way, it is a struggle over “which street should be King?”. As will be established in this study, controversy over naming streets after King often revolves around issues of intra-urban location or where King's memory is best situated within the city's larger social and economic geography. Conflict arises, for instance, over whether MLK streets should be confined to predominantly AfricanAmerican areas of the city. Conflict also arises over where these named streets should be located in relation to the business or commercial portions of the city. Some of the most vocal and powerful opponents to street (re)naming are businesses located on potentially renamed streets, who cite, whether legitimately or not, the cost and burden of reprinting forms, stationary, and advertisements containing the address change. Some business and property owners have gone so far as to express concern about the economic impact o f having their street identified with King and, as they perceive it, the black community. As will also be established in this study, the cultural geography of (re)naming streets after King is shaped by relations and debates within the African-American community, as well as between blacks and whites. African-Americans differ with each other in choosing the most appropriate street in which to commemorate King, the scale at which King should be commemorated through street naming, and the larger value of pursuing street naming versus other, supposedly more important, political, economic, and social agendas.


5 Despite the relative frequency and intensity of these conflicts, geographers and other social scientists have devoted relatively little analytical attention to these new geographies of memory, phenomena which could provide valuable insight into the role of geography in constituting and structuring the reconstruction of racial identity and southern collective memory. This dissertation conducts a theoretical and empirical exploration of MLK street (re)naming in the American South, a region recently characterized by intense inter- and intra-racial struggles over interpretation and commemoration of the past. MLK street (re)naming represents struggles by AfricanAmericans to create new geographies of memory in a region where much of the cultural landscape has been reserved for memorializing white-controlled conceptions o f the past. However, conducting such an analysis is problematic because of our still poor understanding of the commemorative and political importance o f street (re)naming. the politics of public commemoration and the role of geography in these political struggles, the nature o f social relations between and within the black and white communities, and the locational politics of street name changes as part o f the reconstruction o f urban public space. This dissertation hopes to advance knowledge in these areas as it attempts to describe and explain the cultural geography of naming streets after King. Before defining the specific objectives of the dissertation, this chapter gives the reader necessary background into: (1) the emerging relationship between place (re)naming and the cultural politics of racial relations in America; (2) the tremendous challenges and changes that have occurred in the South’s commemorative landscape in the last ten years or so; (3) the politics of remembering and commemorating King in America; (4) the lack of attention in the past toward documenting and analyzing the cultural geography of MLK streets; and (5) the need to develop a more critical study of place naming, which this dissertation attempts to undertake.


6 1.2

A New Geography of Place Naming in America Historically, the geographic literature on African-Americans has been dominated

by concerns with residential patterns and social problems while neglecting their cultural and historical geographies (Dwyer 1997). There has been even less attention paid to the role of African-Americans in the history and geography o f place naming. However, recent changes in the place name landscape provide an excellent setting within which to examine how African-Americans are struggling to redefine “American” culture and their identity and relative importance within that culture. As suggested by Berg and Kearns (1996: 118). place naming is part of the social construction of space and an important signifier of meaning, “providing symbolic identity to people, place, and landscape.” An increasing amount of research emphasizes how place names play a key role in larger struggles over social and political identity, and are used for the purposes of both reproducing and resisting the hegemonic order (Cohen and Kliot 1992; Myers 1996). There is increasing evidence of African-Americans and other minorities using commemorative place (re)naming as a geographic and symbolic strategy for reconstructing the country's collective memory. In 1994. African-Americans in St. Louis succeeded in having the Pierre Laclede Post Office renamed to Marian Oldham Post Office in honor of the longtime civil rights activist (St. Louis Post-Dispatch. December 12. 1994. Section 6, p. 1). Hispanic Alderman Ambrosio Medrano proposed that Chicago's Blue Island Avenue be re-designated in tribute to late Mexican-American labor leader Cesar Chavez (Chicago Tribune, May 14. 1993. Section 2C. p. 5). Fort Lincoln Elementary School in Washington, D.C. was renamed in honor of late civil rights advocate and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (Afro-American. June 8. 1996, p. A l). The renaming was intended to give the school’s largely African-American student body a person with whom they could identify. Perhaps the most publicized attempt to rewrite public history and identity through place naming has originated in New Orleans. In 1992, the Orleans Parish school


7

board, which is majorin' African-American, adopted a policy that prohibited school names “hononng former slave owners and others who did not respect equal opportunity for all." Since passing this policy, the school board has changed the names of 22 schools. For instance, a school named after Robert E. Lee was renamed for Ronald McNair, a black astronaut killed in the Challenger tragedy of 1986 (New York Times [online], November 12. 1997). Jefferson Davis Elementary was renamed Ernest N. Morial Elementary in honor o f the city's first black mayor (Riley 1993). McDonooh Elementary School was renamed Mahalia Jackson Elementary School after the famous African-American songstress (Times-Picayune, May 12. 1993. p. B l). Most recently, the school board voted to remove the name George Washington from an elementary school and rename it after Dr. Charles Richard Drew, a black surgeon who developed methods of preserving blood plasma and protested the practice of segregating donated blood by race. This name change attracted national media attention, becoming a topic of discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert in November 1997. As illustrated in New Orleans, place naming is controversial because it involves not only identifying a place with a new name and memory of the past but also because it often involves removing an established name and historical association. Commemorative street naming has proven to be one of the most common of these toponymic changes. The city of Jackson. Mississippi named a street in honor of James Thomas (Cool Papa) Bell, the first baseball star from the Negro Major Leagues to have a street in Mississippi named in his honor (Jet, July 25, 1994). In January 1996, the council of Howard County, Maryland renamed a street after Harriet Tubman who freed more than 300 slaves through the Underground Railroad. It seemed only appropriate that the renamed street was located in Freetown, a community named for freed blacks who settled there after Emancipation (Baltimore Morning Sun, June 21,1996, p. 5B). Tubman's name has also been attached to streets in Winston Salem, North Carolina and Knoxville. Tennessee. New York City lays claim to boulevards named for Malcolm X,


8 Marcus Garvey, and Adam Clayton Powell. Street (re)naming is not restricted to honoring deceased African-American heroes. In 1993. the city of Phenix City. Alabama named a street after Colin Powell, former chairman o f the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Baltimore Morning Sun. January 9. 1993. p. 2A).

A street in Turners Station.

Maryland was renamed for Kwesi Mfiime. current CEO of the National Association for the Advancement o f Colored People (NAACP) and former resident of the community. Detroit. Michigan and Montgomery. Alabama both renamed a street after Rosa Parks, famous for violating segregated bus seating in the 1950s. For many communities, commemorative street naming has proven to be a highly contentious process. Before being re-elected Mayor o f Washington. D.C.. Marion Barry pushed to have Good Hope Road renamed in honor o f Marcus Garvey, a proposal that was heavily attacked by many city residents and business owners (Washington Post. May 20, 1993. DC section, p. 3). In 1992, a group o f African-Americans in Atlanta. Georgia unsuccessfully petitioned the city council to change the name of Ashby Street -named for a Confederate cavalry leader —to Malcolm X Boulevard (Atlanta Constitution, December 10. 1992. p. FI). In that same year in Atlanta, black residents of Hogue Street opposed a proposal by the city's mayor and Indian community to rename their street for Mahatma Gandhi. Hogue Street intersects with Auburn Avenue near the childhood neighborhood of Martin Luther King, Jr. According to members of the Indian community, placing Gandhi in the same commemorative space with King was meant to help improve relations between black Americans and immigrants after the violence following the Rodney King verdict (Atlanta Constitution, September 3. 1992. p. C4), although it appeared in practice to do the complete opposite. Street naming has been particularly contested in San Francisco. In 1995, when the city’s board o f supervisors overrode the mayor’s veto and renamed Army Street in honor of Cesar Chavez, residents of Army Street unsuccessfully petitioned to convert the street back to its original name (San Francisco Chronicle, January 10, 1995, p. A15; San


Francisco Chronicle. January 24. 1995. p. A20). More recently. San Francisco Supervisor Amos Brown proposed to rename Fillmore Street, named after the 13th U.S. President to Dr. Carlton Goodlett Way. recently deceased local civil rights hero and newspaper publisher. Intended to draw attention to the importance of African-American contributions to society, the proposed name change met with great opposition, particularly from the Fillmore Merchants and Improvement Association and. as a result. Brown began backing away from his original proposal (San Francisco Chronicle. February 10. 1997. p. A l: New York Times. February 16. 1997. Sec. 1. p. 21; San Francisco Chronicle. February 26. 1997, p. Al 1) In summary, while it is true that place name commemoration of national figures appears less common now than in previous centuries (Zelinsky 1983). commemorative place naming continues to occur and. in fact, assumes an important role in racial and ethnic relations/struggles in America. Despite this apparent importance, relatively little attention in geography has been paid to analyzing recent changes in America's commemorative place name landscape and the role o f place (re)naming in the arena of cultural politics. Critically evaluating these changes requires theoretical and empirical exploration into the politics of place naming, the position of place-naming in racial and ethnic struggles, and the relationship between geography and memory. This dissertation conducts such an exploration by investigating one o f the most widespread yet controversial toponymic trends in the American South, the (re)naming of streets after slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

1.3

Changing Geographies of Memory in the South In addition to better understanding the cultural and political significance of

contemporary commemorative place (re)naming in America, this work attempts to shed light into the larger cultural struggles taking place within the American South over the legitimacy of existing geographies of memory and the construction of new


10 commemorative spaces. The South is a particularly interesting place to study the politics of race, space, and memory. Cobb (1996: 14) aptly characterized some of the challenges currently facing the region: In a no-longer segregated South, two well-defined ethnic groups are struggling to coexist peacefully under a common cultural canopy. Endowed by their history with a distinctive regional heritage, they now face the challenge of recovering from that conflict-ridden past a common attachment to something meaningful and enduring. Regions are not simply physical or economic organizations, but are also symbolic systems whose meaning and identity are intimately tied to certain collective memories and reconstructions of the past. Traditionally, symbolic space in the South was reserved largely for remembrance and commemoration of the region's role in the Civil War and the mythic “Old South” plantation lifestyle supposedly lost as a result of that conflict. These memories are deeply ingrained into the region's symbology in the form of monuments, historical markers, and place-names (Winberry 1983; Gulley 1990: Radford 1992; Gulley 1993). The power o f the memory of the Civil War is particularly strong in Georgia, where, according to McNinch and Richardson (1996: 4): There are over 1,100 roadside markers, 400 monuments, and three national battlefields that serve as symbolic reminders o f the Confederacy...Surely one o f the most famous is found on Stone Mountain, where the majestically sculpted figures of Jefferson Davis. Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee serve as heroic sentinels....This (is) Mount Rushmore of the South. Recently, however. Civil War-centered conceptions o f the past and their primacy over the cultural landscape have increasingly been challenged, particularly by AfricanAmericans (Webster and Webster 1994). For example, in Georgia these feelings culminated in a campaign to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state's flag (Leib 1995). In 1996. under pressure from Olympic sponsors and officials, the city o f Roswell. Georgia removed the word “antebellum” from its summer festival advertisements and canceled plans for a Civil War re-enactment. The Atlanta History


11 Center captured the spirit of many of these commemorative changes when it recently advertised in a brochure: “There's more to Atlanta's past than Tara and some guy named Sherman.” An article in the New York Times provides numerous other examples of contests over symbols of the Old South such as: (1) debates in South Carolina over whether to remove the Confederate battle flag from atop the Capitol: (2) attempts by University of Mississippi officials to dissuade students and alumni from waving the Confederate battle flag and singing “Dixie" at athletic events; (3) the voting of the Virginia Senate to retire the state song “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia” because of references to “darkies” and “old massa”; (4) a similar proposal in Florida to eliminate “Swannee River” as the state song because of derogatory references to African-Americans and its nostalgia for the plantation: and (5) petitions in Franklin. Tennessee and Walterboro. South Carolina to remove long-standing monuments to the Confederacy (New York Times [online], February 8. 1997). Amidst the political reevaluation and contestation of traditional. Civil Warcentered commemorative structures has been a movement to create new geographies of memory that would commemorate the historical experiences, struggles, and achievements of African-Americans. An important component in the production of these new geographies of memory are monuments honoring another, quite different, revolution from that of the Civil War. the Civil Rights Movement (e.g.. Zinsser 1991). Davis (1998) has compiled a travel guide and history describing many of these new monuments and museums commemorating the Civil Rights Movement. These new commemorative structures have not come without controversy, however, particularly as they are incorporated into existing geographies of memory and previously Confederatized everyday spaces are appropriated for the purposes of other commemoration. For example, the city of Richmond, Virginia was divided over whether a memorial to tennis player and civil rights activist Arthur Ashe should be placed on


12 Monument Avenue, one of the city's more prominent streets and. most importantly, the location o f several statues of Confederate military leaders {Atlanta Journal Constitution. January 8. 1995. p. Ml: Atlanta Journal Constitution. July 16, 1995. p. C l: Atlanta Journal Constitution. August 16. 1995. p. A 12). The commemoration was not only controversial because of opposition from whites but also because of the division among blacks in Richmond. Although some whites did publicly support the proposal, many claimed that it was aesthetically and symbolically incompatible to place a monument to a sports star with more serious commemorative activities. Opposing blacks, who later included Ashe's widow, cited the injustice of situating the statue of Ashe . the symbol of African-American empowerment, in the same symbolic space as “defenders of slavery" and the forefathers of the system of segregation that had oppressed Ashe and other southern blacks. They advocated, along with many whites, the placement of the Ashe memorial in front of a new tennis recreation complex. As illustrated in Richmond, controversies over these new geographies of AfricanAmerican memory are not always between blacks and whites. One of the most interesting examples of this is in Memphis, Tennessee, where the black activist Jacqueline Smith has spent the last nine years protesting the conversion of the Lorraine Motel —the site of Martin Luther King's assassination —into the National Civil Rights Museum. Her protests are literally street politics in that she lives, eats, and sleeps on the sidewalk across the street from the museum. She advertises the museum as the “National Civil Wrong Museum,” distributes protest literature, and suggests to museum visitors an alternative vision of how to commemorate King. When the photograph in Figure 1.1 was taken, Smith had been engaged in her sidewalk protest for almost 2900 days. Before becoming a museum, the Lorraine Motel had served as housing for low-income people. Jacqueline Smith was the last resident of the Lorraine Motel before its closure and conversion into a museum and state-owned tourist attraction. Framing the Lorraine


13

« | § f 9 !P T O U G E rtR fflE E D OVER®” » « p I - R E - * M E G«fR iffS E AHD B T ? r f a fe flE H STORt ABGUT THE NA- . ! ^ K k >nal civil $ » ( { £ wrong m u s e u m

-WRONG! MUSEUM TOURIST1 TRAP Figure 1.1: Jacqueline Smith Protesting National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tennessee


14 Motel conversion as part of the larger exploitative practice of gentrification. Jacqueline Smith argues that the museum does not embody or truly commemorate the ideals and beliefs of King, who would never have allowed the displacement of low-income people for the purpose o f establishing a memorial. Smith writes in one of her pamphlets: “The best monument to Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. would be a center at the Lorraine offering housing, job training, free community college, health clinic or other services for the poor.” Jones (1996: 147) pointed out in his discussion of Smith's protests: “Her street politics raises questions concerning who has the power to produce and display history, how hegemonic alignments of space and representation might be contested, and the politics of race in urban regeneration." In addition to demonstrating the politicized nature of commemoration, the Jacqueline Smith case also illustrates how AfricanAmericans compete amongst themselves over how best to memorialize King. The events in Richmond and Memphis illustrate the political complexities of building new geographies of African-American memory in the South, how these commemorative spaces can serve as sites of contest and struggle between and among blacks and whites, and the importance of geography and space to struggles over public remembrance and commemoration.

1.4

The Politics of Commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. A major pillar in the South's commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement and

its attendant geographies of memory is the commemoration of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. As illustrated in the Jacqueline Smith case, people hold competing and potentially conflicting views about King. Controversy over how and where to commemorate him is not limited to the South but constitutes a national “mnemonic battle” (Zerubavel 1996). This battle is carried out on many fronts and at various scales, o f which street naming is perhaps the least analyzed.


15 Thirty-years after his assassination. MLK occupies a prominent yet divisive place in the American collective memory. Sixty percent o f 800 adult Iowans polled in 1988 said that the death of King affected them personally. While more Iowans said they were affected by the deaths of John Kennedy (83 percent) and Bobby Kennedy (71 percent). King's death moved more respondents than Franklin Roosevelt (45 percent) and Malcolm X (17 percent) (Iowa Poll. July 31. 1988). In expressing their opinion of several national leaders and organizations. 29 percent of 4.244 nationwide respondents saw King as “very favorable." Only Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy received a higher rating with 32 and 39 percent of respondents seeing them in a “very favorable" light respectively (Times Mirror Survey. January 1988). In a 1994 survey of 613 New York City residents. 68 percent responded that King's life had influenced them. However, this survey also showed racial differences in the perceived importance of King. While only 12 percent of African-Americans claimed not to be influenced by King's life, the figure rose to 41 percent for white respondents {Marist Institute for Public Opinion. December 7. 1994). There also appears to be generational differences in King's appeal. While a 1993 CBS News/New York Times poll found 82 percent of white respondents under the age of 45 agreeing with the statement that Martin Luther King had “made things better for blacks in this country," this figure dropped to 70 percent for white respondents over 45. African-Americans’ high opinion of King deviated only slightly across age groups. However. African-Americans in this poll did differ in their opinion of King's protest efforts. Twenty-three percent of blacks younger than 45 said that King was not forceful enough in his efforts to gain equal rights. In contrast, only 11 percent of blacks over the age of 45 thought King was not forceful enough (CBS News/New York Times Civil Rights Poll. April 4, 1993). A 1996 Southern Focus Poll of 1,222 adults nationwide suggests that there are also regional differences in people’s perception o f MLK. The results of this poll are displayed in Figure 1.2. Among respondents who classified themselves as


16

How much do you admire MLK, Jr

Great Deal Some

Not Much Not At All No Answer

Response Choices Southern Sample (n=799) Non-Southern Sample (n=422) Source: Southern Focus Poll, Fall 1996

Figure 1.2: Regional Differences in Public Admiration of Martin Luther King. Jr.. 1996


17 “non-southern,” King was admired “A Great Deal" by 55.6 percent. “Not Much” by 4.4 percent, and “Not at all” by 5.7 percent. In contrast, “southern” respondents were less likely to admire King “A Great Deal” (46.9%) and more likely to admire him “Not at all” (8.7%). This should not take away from the fact that over 80 percent of southern respondents and 84 percent o f “non-southem” respondents said they admired MLK to some degree (Southern Focus Poll, Fall 1996). While many Americans, black and white, rate King rather favorably in surveys, we have not seen nearly the same level of consensus on the issue of how and where to commemorate the civil rights leader. Perhaps the most widely recognized commemorative battle over King has revolved around the establishment of holidays in his honor. Before its passage in 1983. the King federal holiday was the center of heated debates in the U.S. Senate, focusing public attention upon accusations that King was a communist and had extramarital affairs (The Economist, October 22. 1983, pp. 23-24). Public opinion also appeared split. In January of 1983. an ABC News/ Washington Post Poll interviewed a random sample of 1.510 adults nationwide and found 47 percent in support of making King's birthday into a national holiday, 48 percent opposed, and 8 percent had no opinion (ABC News/Washington Post Poll, January 18-22. 1983). However, by October of 1983. when a cross-section o f 1.246 nationwide adults was interviewed. 59 percent favored the federal government making King's birthday a national holiday while 34 percent opposed and 7 percent were not sure. The two groups most opposed to commemorating King with a national holiday consisted of those who voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and voters over the age o f 50. In this survey, 95 percent of African-Americans supported the creation of the King holiday. Among regions, the South had the lowest percentage of support for the King federal holiday with 53 percent (The Harris Survey, October 17, 1983) Two other opinion polls provide a closer look at southern attitudes toward the King holiday. In the fall of 1983, a Richmond Times-Dispatch Survey of registered


voters in Virginia showed that 51 percent opposed a state or national holiday honoring Martin Luther King. Jr (Richmond Times-Dispatch Survey. Fall 1983). In the spring of 1984. a survey of 1.209 adults residing in North Carolina found that 44% of respondents thought it was a “bad idea" for the government to name a federal holiday after King. Only 28 percent felt it was a “good idea” while 22 percent said that it did not make much difference (The North Carolina Survey. Spring 1994). The high percentage of respondents who claimed that it made “no difference" is perhaps indicative of the “post heroic age” within which we find ourselves. According to a 1994 survey of 1000 American adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University. 50 percent of respondents said they did not have a hero. People were less likely to claim heroes if they were younger, lower income, less educated, and lived in the Northeast and Midwest. Arguably, commemorating King is politicized not only because of specific views about King but also because of possible declining public interest in commemorating anyone. Nevertheless, among those who claimed to still have heroes. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the second most commonly named hero after John Kennedy. King was followed in popularity by Abraham Lincoln and Norman Schwarzkopf (St. Petersburg Times. August 10. 1994, pp. 1A-2A) The holiday issue was perhaps no more contested than in Arizona, with a paid state holiday being created and then rescinded on three different occasions. In one o f these attempts, the state legislature had created a paid holiday by eliminating Columbus Day. an action that sparked controversy and the decision to put the King holiday up for a popular vote. Arizona's voters finally approved a holiday initiative in 1992 after rejecting one in 1990 (Sigelman and Walkosz 1992; Potholm 1993; Alozie 1995). Amidst the controversy in 1990, the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette newspapers posed questions about the King state holiday to 808 randomly selected adults living in Arizona (Arizona Republic Poll, January 7, 1990). Forty percent o f those surveyed opposed a paid holiday honoring King. However, 60 percent of those aged 55 and older


19 were opposed to the holiday. Of those opposed to the King holiday. 48 percent gave the reason that “King's accomplishments don't merit a holiday. He's not important enough.” 20 percent said that the holiday “costs the state too much money.” and 18 percent said the reason they were opposed was that the King holiday “eliminated an existing holiday (Columbus Day).” The establishment of a King holiday did not signal the end of controversy. For example, in Memphis. Tennessee, blacks were enraged by a McDonald's restaurant calender labeling January 16. 1989 as “National Nothing Day” (Chicago Defender. 18 January 1989, p. 3). More recently, the city of Houston. Texas has seen bitter division between the African-American community over who will organize and lead parades during the holiday (Houston Chronicle [online], January 6. 1998). According to newspaper reports, the intra-racial division has been spurred on by personal animosity between rival organizations, as well as differing opinions about the extent to which the King holiday should be “commercialized.” an issue that harkens back to the claims of Jacqueline Smith in Memphis. Controversy over King's legacy has not been confined to the issue of holidaymaking. King's family has collided with the media over the alleged unauthorized use of the civil rights leader's words (Boston Globe, February 13, 1993, p. 44; Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 17. 1994. Section B. p. 2; New York Times. January 27, 1997, p. A 16) and with the federal park service over management of the King historical district in Atlanta. Georgia (USA Today. December 29. 1994. Sec. A. p. 1; USA Today. January 13, 1995. pp. 1A-2A). Another important and contentious aspect of King's commemoration has been the attachment o f his name to schools, hospitals, parks, and streets. For example, in Riverside, California, white parents protested the plan to name a new high school after King. The reason given by several parents was that students from the named school (which is expected to be two-thirds white) might be perceived as being from a predominantly black school, hence hurting “students' college entrance chances in states


20 less tolerant than California” {CNN Interactive [online], January 6. 1998). Flyers were circulated in opposition to the school naming. Despite these protests and direct opposition at a school district meeting, board members voted unanimously to name the school after King with superintendent Anthony Lardieri stating: “I think he (King) transcends color lines” {USA Today [online], January 4. 1998). The (re)naming of streets represents one of the most widespread components in this larger project of commemorating King in America. Like other memorializations. street (re)naming also serves as a site of political and cultural struggle. For example. African-Americans in Milwaukee protested and marched against the city restricting Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive to the boundaries of the black community (Kenny 1995). MLK street (re)naming also proved controversial in Portland, Oregon, where, in April 1989, the city council voted to rename Union Avenue after King. Over two dozen people picketed and heckled the street naming ceremony and a petition of 52.435 signatures was collected opposing the street name change. As a result of this backlash, Portland voters were to be given a chance to vote on an initiative in the 1990 primary election that would change the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard back to Union Avenue. Before this election could be held, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Harl Haas ruled that placing such an initiative on the ballot was illegal {Seattle Times. March 4. 1990, p. D5). Before the handing down of this decision, a survey was conducted by The Oregonian newspaper to measure how a sample of registered voters in Portland felt about the possible restoration o f Union Avenue. While not set in the South, this poll gives a valuable and rare look into public attitudes toward naming streets after King. O f the 400 Portland adults surveyed, 64 percent said they would vote to change the street’s name back to Union Avenue. Of those advocating the name change, 56 percent “disagreed" to some degree with the statement that removing King’s name from the street would have a negative impact on race relations in Portland. In contrast, of those in support of keeping King’s name on the street, 78 percent “agreed” to some


21 extent (with 52 percent “strongly agreeing”) that the name change would have a negative impact on race relations. In attempting to explain their reasoning. 78 percent of those opposed to keeping Martin Luther King, Blvd. “agreed” that changing the name of Union Avenue had created genuine hardship for business owners along the street. As will be established in this dissertation, business owners along potentially affected streets are often the most vocal opponents to MLK street naming. Seventy-six percent of respondents agreed with the statement that honoring King was a good idea but renaming Union Avenue was not the best way to go about it. When asked to choose an alternative, supporters of changing the street’s name back to Union Avenue offered these responses: 67 percent chose naming a statue, city park, square or fountain after King; 16 percent chose naming a street other than Union Avenue after King, and 8 percent chose using the shorter name. King Blvd.. to rename Union Avenue. The largest support for removing King’s name and restoring Union Avenue can from respondents aged 55+. respondents with a high school diploma or less, respondents with incomes less than $25,000 a year, and respondents who had lived in Portland for 21+ years. While only 21 AfricanAmericans were surveyed, 33 percent of them said they would vote to change Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. back to Union Avenue. Among white respondents, 32 percent said they would vote to keep Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd (The Oregonian Poll, February 1990). As the statistics in this section indicate, the commemoration of King (particularly through street (re)naming) is a highly contested practice despite the fact that King (without bringing in the issue of how to commemorate him) is seen in a favorable light by many Americans. Support or opposition to MLK street naming, and King's commemoration overall, is not simply split along racial lines but appears to exhibit certain generational, social, economic, and geographical patterns. While certainly not restricted to the South, MLK street (re)naming has proven to be highly contested within the region. For instance, when the city council in Chattanooga, Tennessee refused to approve the renaming of Ninth Street, 300 protesting


African-Americans organized a march along the street. Armed with ladders and singing We Shall Overcome. they engaged in "‘subversive renaming’’ by pasting street signs with green bumper stickers that read “Dr. M.L. King, Jr. Blvd.” (Chattanooga News-Free Press, April 19. 1981. p. A 1.). In other instances, however, the informal renaming of streets has been a strategy used against the commemoration of King. For example, in 1990 someone painted the name “General Robert E. Lee” over nine Martin Luther King. Jr. Boulevard signs in Dade City, Florida. Between December 5, 1989 and January 20. 1990, almost 100 street signs with King's name in Hillsborough County. Florida were either spray painted, shot at. or pulled completely from their poles (St. Petersburg Times. April 23, 1990, p. IB). As evident in these cases and others discussed later in the dissertation, people hold strong feelings about the locations used for commemorating King, particularly the choice of streets to be renamed. The locational politics of MLK street (re)naming were no more apparent than in Warner Robins. Georgia. Since 1993. dozens of street (re)naming proposals have been brought before the city government. Each proposed location has met with resistance for a variety o f reasons, including home owners and businesses refusing an address change, families protecting streets named after their own ancestors, and African-Americans pushing for more prominent streets. In an attempt to ease tension over the issue, the city council proposed to attach King's name to a new county building that would house the Department of Family and Children Services. The black leadership protested the association of King (and hence blacks in general) with welfare. Most recently, Martin Luther King III was brought in to help resolve the dispute. However, to make the matter even more complicated politically, King’s son said the matter should be settled by the local community and that he did not object to naming the welfare building after his father. At present, the street (re)naming issue remains a point o f contention among citizens in Warner Robins as well as across the American South (The Macon Telegraph Online, February 10, 1997; The Macon Telegraph Online, October I, 1997).


1.5

The Need for Research on MLK Street (Re)naming Despite the increasing frequency and seemingly controversial nature o f naming

streets in tribute to King, social scientists (particularly geographers) have devoted little direct attention to documenting the occurrence of this cultural phenomenon inside or outside of the South. Nor have they spent much time attempting to unravel the political issues and struggles associated with the street naming process, or to determining the “place” of these (re)named streets in the social, economic, and cultural geography of cities and towns. Stump (1988) is responsible for the earliest and. to date, only study to measure spatial variation in MLK street (re)naming. While evident across the nation, he found naming streets after King to be concentrated in the southeastern United States (Figure 1.3). It has been a decade since Stump published his seminal piece and we really have no idea of how the distribution of street (re)naming inside or outside of the South may have changed. It is likely that street naming has continued to increase as the federal holiday honoring King becomes a more permanent part of American cultural life and as the idea of street n a m i n g diffuses to other communities. However, in addition to being some years old. Stump's research is also in need of methodological and theoretical revision. Stump used an incomplete data source that was spatially biased against smaller places. He also neglected to examine the racial composition of cities involved in the n a m in g

process, as well as the intra-urban locational context of named streets. Perhaps

most important. Stump failed to recognize or explore the politically contested nature of naming streets after King. Characterizing and interpreting this new geography of memory is a difficult task. On the one hand, the increasing presence of MLK streets perhaps reflects the growing political and social power of African-Americans in the post-Civil Rights Era South. Indeed, the (re)naming of streets often takes dace when blacks control local government


24

Figure 1.3: Distribution of MLK Streets in the U.S.. 1987 (after Stump 1988)


or mobilize to petition their local governments. For example, a street in Brunswick. Georgia was renamed in honor of King after the Citizens Coalition for Growth o f Glynn presented the Mayor pro tem with a petition signed by some two hundred and sixty citizens (Mail Survey o f Georgia Cities with a MLK Street). In this sense. MLK streets may very well serve as positive symbols for southern black communities. On the other hand, as with other commemorative activities surrounding King, street (re)naming has also been the center of conflict. In attempting to commemorate King. African-American communities have also confronted harsh opposition, particularly in small and medium sized towns where black political influence is often limited (Greene 1992: Pinkney 1993). Journalists report that the streets (or parts of streets) which are (re)named for King are. in many instances, deserted, run-down, dead-ends, or small side-roads located entirely within the black community (The Atlanta Journal Constitution. October 15. 1993. Sec. F, p. 1). The use of degraded and obscure streets to keep the memory of King alive has. in some instances, changed the streets' symbolic meaning from being a point of .African-American pride and identity to what one news reporter referred to as a "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." yet another reminder of continued social inequality and cultural repression (The Atlanta Journal Constitution. January 15. 1995. Sec. E. p. 1).

1.6

Toward a More Critical Cultural Geography of Commemorative Place Naming The ongoing struggles to rename places after King or other African-American

figures point us to the fact that commemorative place naming can and should be examined in relation to what Roberts (1993) has termed “the political economy of place naming.” Such a perspective, while quite new to traditional toponymic work, explores the power struggles underlying the naming of places and the position of toponyms in the politics of culture and identity.


26 Essential to understanding the politics of commemorative place naming is exploring the social or collective nature of memory and the politics inherent in commemorating the past. While traditionally the realm of sociologists and anthropologists, collective memory theory is becoming an increasingly popular area of study within the geography. Geographers are quickly building a body of literature that investigates the construction of tradition, the connection between memory and the politics of national and ethnic identity, the selective use of history in the promotion of place, and political struggles that surround representations, commemorations, and preservation of the past (Lowenthal 1975; Harvey 1979; Lowenthal 1985; Bowden 1992; Charles worth 1994; Johnson 1994; Heffeman 1995; Johnson 1995; Keams 1995; Till 1995; Edensor 1997). Largely missing from the geographical and sociological/anthropological literatures on commemoration is a critical consideration of the many ways that geography affects the production o f memory within society. What is specifically missing is an understanding of how the politics of constructing space and geographic scale affect the politics of public remembrance and commemoration. W’ith the exception of Azaryahu (1996; 1997), whose work is discussed later in the dissertation, this developing literature has largely neglected a critical analysis of commemorative place naming, particularly street naming. Also essential to understanding the politics o f commemorative place naming, particularly street naming, is a consideration of the locational dynamics and decision making involved in place naming. Working within the Sauerian tradition and following Stewart's (1970) seminal American Place-Names, cultural geographers have typically focused on cataloguing, describing, and mapping toponymic patterns. Traditionally, place name patterns have been studied in a very binary manner, as either being present or not. While certainly worthwhile, the sheer occurrence o f certain place names represents only the beginning o f the story. The cultural geography o f place names is also found by examining how local political actors and groups struggle with each other to locate a


place to name. To describe and analyze critically the cultural geography of naming streets after King requires the development of a more critical toponymic approach than we have typically seen, one which explores the intra-urban locational politics of place names and the complex relationship between geography and memory.

1.7

Objectives of Dissertation The general purpose of this dissertation is to explore and write a cultural

geography of MLK street naming in the American South, with particular attention paid to the cultural politics of place naming and commemoration in Georgia. Analyzing this new trend requires not only documenting and mapping its geographic occurrence and frequency. Rather, it also requires us. as suggested by contemporary cultural geography (Jackson 1989b), to begin surveying the political and social dimensions of MLK street(re)naming and locating this new toponymic trend within the lives of those who support and oppose the (re)naming process. With this in mind, this research will carry out these specific objectives.

1.7.1

Objective One This study will document, map, and analyze the geographic location,

distribution, and characteristics of streets named after King. It will begin by identifying national patterns of street naming and then focus analysis on the 11 southern states of the former Confederacy, examining street (re)naming in relation to the size and racial composition of cities. Information will be collected and analyzed on the social and commercial composition o f streets named after King. Finally, the study will narrow its attention to Georgia, King’s home state and an area where commemorating him through street (re)naming has been both particularly common and controversial. Particular attention will be devoted to updating and improving upon the work of Stump (1988). The Confederate South was chosen as a study area because it is a region where the issues


28 of race and memory are so intimately tied together that it is currently producing intense cultural conflict and struggle over the organization and use of symbolic space. Quite possibly, the greatest opposition to African-American attempts to commemorate King can be found in the traditional Confederate South, although King's influence and civil rights teachings have spread and evoked reaction (both negative and positive) far beyond the region.

1.7.2

Objective Two This study will develop and empirically evaluate a theoretical framework for

explaining the “politics of commemorative street (re)naming.” It will draw upon conceptual frameworks found in contemporary place name research, the “new” cultural geography, and collective memory theory. This research examines the role of southern blacks in (re)naming streets after King, the controversies and struggles they face with whites and among themselves, and the ultimate location and meaning which these streets take. This research focuses critical attention on a number of different issues shaping not only the decision to commemorate King but the politics o f selecting a street to (re)name after King. The overarching theoretical intent is to develop a deeper understanding of the geography of memory, i.e.. how space and scale constitute and structure the politics of commemorating the past. To do this, the dissertation examines the MLK street (re)naming controversies in two small Georgia towns. Each case study was informed by an examination of newspaper archives, local government records, and interviews with key participants in the street naming process. The case cities are Statesboro and Eatonton. Georgia. These two cities were chosen because Eatonton was “successful” in getting a street renamed while Statesboro was “unsuccessful." The words “successful” and “unsuccessful" are in quotations because of the relative nature of the concept. For some African-American and whites, just honoring King in some way is considered a


29 “success.” For others, however, commemorating King could be seen as less than a total success if it takes place on a street not o f their choosing.

1.8

Larger Significance/Contributions of Dissertation This project will attempt to make the following theoretical and empirical

contributions. Many of the ideas listed below are fully developed and explained in the next chapter, which presents the theoretical basis o f this study. •

This dissertation builds upon, and contributes to, a recently re-theorized cultural geography and its emphasis on the politics of culture, marginalized groups in the city, and the symbolic qualities of the landscape. In doing so. the work more firmly positions commemorative place name study within the so-called “new” cultural geography and the place of recent place name changes in the arena of cultural politics and racial/ethnic struggles in America.

•

This dissertation further clarifies and develops a new cultural geography of place name study, one which integrates toponymy with theories o f power, hegemonic politics, and the hybridity of identities, and recent theories about the nature o f public space.

•

Investigating MLK street (re)naming allows us to explore how notions of race, racial differences, and racial relations are constructed socially and made meaningful culturally, and how the politics of place naming are shaped by these relations.

• Exploring the (re)naming of streets after King provides further insight into the importance of urban space in reshaping (or reinforcing) social relations, as well as the current state of race relations and African-American power within the South. • This study o f street (re)naming allows us to realize the importance of space, and particularly the production of scale, to the act of commemoration.


30 1.9

Organization of Dissertation This chapter has outlined the scope, purpose, and theoretical significance of the

dissertation research. Chapter 2 outlines a theory for explaining the political struggles and ideological interests involved in the street naming process. In doing so. it presents evidence of the politics underlying the renaming of streets after King, situates this study in relation to recent re-theorizations in cultural geography, and argues that MLK street naming is where the hegemonic politics o f naming, memory, geographic scale, and public space come together. The remaining chapters are organized as follows. Chapter 3 attempts to identify, map. and analyze the distribution of MLK street (re)naming inside and outside of the South, to describe the intra-urban characteristics o f southern streets renamed after King, and to document the historical and spatial diffusion of street naming within Georgia. Chapter 4 introduces two case studies of the politics of MLK street (re)naming from Georgia, describing each city's specific racial characteristics, historical background, and street naming controversy. Chapter 5 offers an analysis and evaluation of these case studies in relation to the theoretical framework developed in Chapter 2. Chapter 6 presents a summary and conclusion of the dissertation’s findings, contributions, and future areas of research.


Chapter 2 (Re)Naming Streets After King: Where the Politics of Naming, Memory, Scale and Public Space Meet

2.1

Purpose of Chapter The purpose of this chapter is to articulate a theoretical framework for analyzing

the cultural geography of MLK street (re)naming. Many of the issues and questions posed in this chapter guide the case studies presented later in the dissertation. As established in this chapter, naming streets after King, particularly in the context of the American South, is often marked by controversy among and between the region's white and African-American populations. This study focuses on the political struggles surrounding this new geographic and symbolic practice. Specifically. I will theorize about why (re)naming streets after Martin Luther King. Jr. is the controversial issue it has proven to be in several towns and cities in the American South. In doing so. the dissertation will develop a greater understanding o f the politics that are inherent in the production of culture and cultural landscapes, the status of inter- and intra- race relations in the post Civil-Rights South, the importance o f geography (particularly the social production of scale) to commemoration, and the relationship between street (re)naming and ongoing struggles over the nature of public space in cities. As pointed out in the introductory chapter, very little academic attention has been devoted to exploring the commemoration of King through street (re)naming and, with the exception of preliminary work by this author (Alderman 1996), almost no effort has been made to define its cultural politics. The dissertation’s emphasis on political struggles is linked, in part, to recent theoretical changes in the field of cultural geography. Contemporary 31


cultural geography, unlike its Sauerian predecessor, emphasizes the politics of culture, marginalized groups in the city, and the symbolic qualities of the landscape. The chapter is divided into six sections. In the first section. I discuss past neglect of the politics of (re)naming streets after King, giving evidence of the extent to which street (re)naming holds a contested place in the cultural geography of the South and Georgia, and defining the primary issues in these struggles. Section two is dedicated to outlining, in more detail, the retheorization and redefinition that cultural geography has undergone and how this study fits into, and contributes to, these recent changes in the discipline. The remaining sections of the chapter theorize about the struggles that affect the cultural geography of (re)naming streets after Martin Luther King. In brief. King street (re)naming can be analyzed in relation to four interrelated struggles: (i) the politics of naming places; (ii) the politics of memory; (iii) the politics of geographic scale; and (iv) the politics o f reconstructing public space. In developing each struggle. I discuss literature and ideas that are relatively new to place name geography and cultural geography in general.

2.2

Defining the Politics of MLK Street (Re)Naming Stump (1988) is responsible for the only other geographic examination of MLK

street (re)naming. Chapter 3 presents a more detailed discussion, critique, and update of his work. For our purposes here, however, it is important to note that Stump de emphasized the political nature of naming streets after King. The lack of theoretical and empirical work on the politics of commemorative street (re)naming can perhaps be traced to a larger tendency among social scientists to see the practice as less significant than other, more ornate forms of commemoration. This idea is evident in the words of Stump when he asserted that getting a street named after King is a much easier political task for southern blacks than getting a school renamed. He also argued that schools have


greater symbolic or memorial importance than streets. On these points. Stump (1988: 211) wrote: The naming of a school in honor of an individual has a special significance, creating an overt association between that person and the community....Naming a street after an individual is less likely to canysuch a connotation, honoring that person without creating an explicit association between his values and society's....By commemorating King through street names, local authorities could satisfy those advocating some form of memorial without creating the controversy that could follow the more symbolic act of dedicating a school to him. I certainly agree with Stump's assessment that there are symbolic and political differences in the (re)naming of schools versus streets. Indeed, as I discuss in one of the following sections, to understand fully the (re)naming of streets after King requires that we know its place within the larger genre or text o f commemoration. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that, contrary to Stump's implication. MLK street (re)naming is many times a highly "politicized" geographic and symbolic practice that has fueled great controversy and struggles among and between blacks and whites within the South, particularly within Georgia. Newspaper accounts, city council and county commission records, and an exploratory survey of local governments in Georgia conducted by this author offer a different picture of MLK street (re)naming than Stump’s (1988).1 Using these resources. I provide an introduction into: (1) some of the social groups and actors involved in street

1 In August of 1996, the author designed and conducted a mail survey of local governments o f 72 Georgia cities which have a street named after King. The questionnaire was sent to either the city manager, mayor, or city clerk o f each city. City authorities were asked basic questions on the date o f renaming, who initiated the street naming, and other pertinent information on the political issues that centered around the naming process. In October of 1996, a follow-up questionnaire was sent to local governments that had not responded to the original request. Fifty-two (or 72%) of cities responded, with many providing valuable copies o f local government records and relevant local newspaper articles, some o f which were used in putting together the following discussion.


34 naming; (2) the social and political meaning of naming streets after King; and (3) the nature of controversies and struggles surrounding street naming in the American South, particularly in the non-metropolitan areas of Georgia. Contrary to Stump's implication, renaming streets, especially when it involves altering the commemorative position of a long established street, can evoke great controversy. In Pensacola. Florida, for example, community leader LeRoy Boyd proposed to attach King's name to four miles of Palafox Street, a historic street with its identity strongly linked to the Spanish, who controlled the city two centuries ago. The city council opposed the name change, saying that Palafox street would not undergo any type of name change for any reason (Atlanta Journal Constitution. January 19. 1997. p. B6). When Charles Brimberry brought a proposal before the city council of Pelham. Georgia to build a monument to blacks who had died in the struggle for civil rights and to rename a city street after Martin Luther King, the naming of a street proved more controversial than did erecting a monument. In fact, the one council member who opposed the proposal went as far as to support the building of a park (with grass, sprinklers, lights, and fences) for the proposed monument but refused to approve the street renaming. The councilman asked if people on the affected street had been polled and stated: “I am opposed to a street name change without knowing about it beforehand or without people on the street having any input." A fellow councilman, who was in support of the street name change, pointed out that only two houses were located on the affected street. Brimberry added that when he had come before the council to propose an earlier street name change, he had submitted a petition signed by forty-seven people supporting the name change but the council voted it down nevertheless. Eventually, the monument and street name change passed with one dissenting vote by the proposal’s original opponent (Pelham Journal, April 18, 1991, p. 9; Minutes o f Regular Council Meeting o f Mayor and Council o f Pelham. Georgia, April 9, 1991).


MLK street (re)naming was especially contested in Americus. Georgia. City officials in Americus did not (re)name a portion o f U.S. 19 after King until black community leaders planned a boycott of city businesses. White opposition to King street (re)naming also prompted a boycott in Sylvester. Georgia and the threat of a boycott in Fort Valley, Georgia (Atlanta Journal Constitution. October 15. 1993, p. FI). Part of the street (re)naming controversy in Americus revolved around the inflammatory comments of an assistant fire chief who said that it would be fine to name half of the street for King if the other half were named for James Earl Ray. the man convicted of assassinating the civil rights leader (Atlanta Constitution. December 29. 1992. p. D2). When African-Americans have faced white resistance to the (re)naming process, they have related this opposition to the protection o f traditional southern views on race and whites' unwillingness to embrace a greater African-American cultural/political influence. Reverend E.J. O’Neal, past president of the Ministerial Alliance of Griffin. Georgia, found great resistance from the white community when he and his coalition tried, unsuccessfully, to have a busy downtown street named after King. Reverend O'Neal described the situation to Atlanta news reporter Hollis Towns as follows: “The bottom line is race.... White folks can't stand riding along a street named after somebody black....It’s a shame that in 1993 we still have to fight to get just recognition from white folks” (Atlanta Journal Constitution, October 15, 1993, p. FI). Some may disagree with the narrowness o f O ’Neal’s interpretation. For instance, Leib, Webster, and Webster (1997) have suggested that ongoing symbolic struggles in the South are related to the politics of nationalism and identity formation, rather than merely racism. In addition. I illustrate later in this chapter that support/opposition to MLK street naming is not always split along racial lines. Nevertheless, Rev. O ’N eal’s comments do provide us with an indication o f the intensity and seriousness with which African-Americans perhaps see the street naming process.


36 As illustrated by the Reverend O'Neal, the church plays a potentially important role in street naming, as it does in black southern culture in general. This was further substantiated by a news report that the movement to names streets after King originated with the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), an organization that King once led (St. Petersburg Times, April 23, 1990. p. IB). However, according to survey responses, other institutions and actors involved in the street naming initiative are the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as well as various community improvement associations, city council members, county commissioners, and King holiday-related coalitions. The association o f King street naming with the church is perhaps not surprising when we consider King's role as a minister and the legacy of the black church as an “indigenous” social resource and mobilization center during the civil rights movement (Morris 1984). The association of MLK street (re)naming with the black church was perhaps not any more apparent than in Metter. Georgia, where the author observed the street name dedication ceremony. The campaign to rename a street was carried out by a local black pastor, the unveiling of Martin Luther King Boulevard took place on the Sunday before the 1996 King holiday, and the dedication service began and ended with prayer and the singing of church hymns. Moreover, the litany of dedication read during the unveiling clearly indicated the spiritual context of the event, the almost saint-like standing of King within the African-American community, and the deep social meaning underlying the street naming. LEADER: To the Glory of God. our great creatorALL: WE DEDICATE THIS STREET LEADER: In honor of a man of peaceALL: WE DEDICATE THIS STREET LEADER: To the proposition that all men are created equalALL: WE DEDICATE THIS STREET LEADER: To promote peace, love, equality, and freedom among all peopleALL: WE DEDICATE THIS STREET AND PLEDGE OURSELVES TO THE IDEALS OF FREEDOM AND EQUALITY AS TAUGHT AND


37

EXEMPLIFIED BY THE MAN WHOSE NAME THIS STREET SHALL HENCEFORTH BEAR. DR. MARTIN LUTHER ICING. JR. Contrary to Stump's (1988: 211) assertion that MLK street naming represents a way of commemorating “without creating an explicit association between his values and society's.” the preceding litany suggests that African-Americans in Metter. Georgia do associate the street with the ideals of peace, freedom, and equality taught by King. Additionally, as shown through these words, they envision street naming as a way of actively promoting these values, as well as of honoring King. In this respect, the renamed street represents an important avenue (no pun intended) for political and social expression and the renaming itself takes on the importance of almost religious practice. Bearing this in mind, it should not surprise us to see some African-American communities willing to struggle with local government officials and opposing citizens over the right to have a street renamed. The city of Cartersville. Georgia was intensely divided on the street (re)naming issue. A street was renamed only after a series o f petitions, counter-petitions, and debates over alternative streets (Mail Survey o f Georgia Cities with MLK Street. Cartersville. Georgia. October 10. 1996). On January 23. 1992. the black community presented a petition before the Cartersville city council to have Moon Street renamed after Martin Luther King. After white residents o f Moon street presented a petition opposing the street name change, another street (Church Street) was approved for renaming, despite the attendance of several black citizens in support of Moon street being renamed after King. Eventually, the name change of Church Street was withdrawn and Moon Street’s name was changed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive in an emergency reading of the ordinance. As seen in Cartersville, controversy over street naming is not simply a matter o f whether a community decides to remember pubiicaily King but also a struggle over which street to rename, that is, determining the most appropriate place to commemorate King through street naming. As Clarence Benham, the black city


38 councilman who first proposed the street name change in Cartersville stated: “Nobody objects to a street named for Martin Luther King. But not on my street" (Atlanta Journal Constitution. October 27. 1996. p. C2). The importance o f location in commemorating King through street naming was perhaps no more apparent than in Brent, Alabama when blacks protested the attachment of King's name on a road leading to a dump. Reverend W.B. Dickerson, who petitioned the city council for the renaming of another, more prominent street, was quoted as saying: “We want [Martin Luther King Street] up where people can really see it.” The city council agreed that the protests were legitimate, promised a new street name change, and explained that the road leading to the dump was named after King because there was no record of it having a name, thus reflecting their own recognition of the political controversy of getting a street renamed after King (Atlanta Constitution. October 30. 1992, p. A3). The issue of location can sometimes bring on seemingly contradictory formations, such as when blacks oppose naming a street after King when the chosen street is perceived as inappropriate. This was the case in Sylvester. Georgia. After refusing to rename a prominent downtown street after MLK, city officials renamed Welch street, “a road with several run-down buildings that dead-ends into a poor neighborhood” (Atlanta Journal Constitution, September 12, 1993, p. F4). As a result, the two black city councilmen who first proposed the renaming voted against the name change and hence the idea of King not being commemorated on a street of their choosing. From all available evidence, some of the most vocal and powerful opponents to street (re)naming appear to be businesses located on potentially renamed streets. For instance, in Griffin, Georgia, several African-American coalitions unsuccessfully petitioned the city government to rename 8th Street after King. Those opposing the renaming were owners o f two pharmacies and a medical center located on the street who cited the financial burden of reordering stationary and prescription labels to reflect the


39 address change (Minutes o f Regular Meeting o f City Commissioners o f Griffin, Georgia. January 24. 1989, p. 1-2). Interestingly enough, opposing business owners suggested and supported the naming o f a park after MLK rather than a street, in effect showing how the politics of commemorating King is not simply about the legitimacy of remembering him publicly but the legitimacy of his memory as understood through a specific spatial and financial context, since there is no stationary needed to be reprinted for renaming the park. A more elaborate opposition was presented at a February 28. 1989 city commission meeting by a white native of the city who was unaffiliated with the potentially affected businesses but objected, nevertheless, on economic grounds. He stated: “the numerical naming of these streets gives to the city an orientation which is enormously helpful to delivery people, visitors to the city who are seeking locations o f businesses.” While stating what he perceived to be logistic reasons for opposing the proposed street renaming, the gentlemen did admit that “it was natural for me to resent his (King’s) attempts to overturn the ways of life I had grown up with." He suggested, as an alternative, that a portion of the highway 19-41 bypass (“The Griffin Bypass”) be renamed because “there are few businesses situated on this highway" and it “should give no offense to whites such as I ”(Minutes o f Regular Meeting o f City Commissioners o f Griffin, Georgia. 28 February, 1989, attachment, p. 2-3). Eventually, the renaming o f 8th street was voted down and the counter-suggestion to rename the highway 19-41 bypass was approved (Minutes o f Regular Meeting o f City Commissioners o f Griffin, Georgia. March 28, 1989, p. 2). The power of business leaders in street naming was also evident in Metter, Georgia, where the city’s initial choice of a street was abandoned because o f a petition filed by affected business owners. The ultimate choice was a prominent yet largely residential street (Mail Survey o f Georgia Cities with MLK Streets, Metter, Georgia, August 1996). Chattanooga, Tennessee illustrates the powerful role o f business/economic elites in the politics of (re)naming streets after King. On January 15, 1982, the city of


40 Chattanooga officially changed the name of Ninth Street to M.L.King. Jr. Blvd., thus ending a four month battle over the issue and a six month adjustment period where the street carried a dual name of Ninth and King (Chattanooga Times, January 16. 1982. p. A1). The primary opponent to the name change was real estate developer T.A. Lupton. who owned a downtown office building on the west end of the street and was in the process of building another one there. Lupton argued that he might not be able to rent office space in a building with a King address because of the racial overtones it might create. He suggested that East Ninth street be renamed but that West Ninth Street be left as it is. Specifically, he was quoted as saying: W. Ninth Street is not related to King...Ninth Street is no longer a solid black street as it was when I was a kid growing up fl]t is no longer a residential street or a rather rundown business street. It is a top class business street that can play a great part in the future of Chattanooga.... When giving street names of this sort (M.L.King Jr.. Blvd.)...it implies some overtones that, perhaps, are not acceptable in the fashion West 9lh Street is now being developed (Chattanooga Times. March 25. 1981. p. Bl). Evident in Lupton's comment is a belief that underlies many arguments in opposition to street (re)naming, namely that MLK streets should be spatially confined to the AfricanAmerican part of the city and that MLK streets may disrupt the process of urban economic development. Lupton later threatened to abandon or “significantly alter” his plans for a new office building on West Ninth if the street was renamed after King. The pull out of Lupton would then jeopardize a $1 million Urban Development Action Grant {Chattanooga Times, April 2, 1981, p. A 1). In reaction. NAACP president George Key said he would seek to have federal officials revoke the $1 million dollar action grant if the street was not named after King {Chattanooga Times, April 3, 1981, p. B2). While the city commission rejected the street name change at that time, it ultimately reversed itself and renamed the entire length of Ninth street for King after an emotional request


41 from black and white ministers and in reaction to negative national publicity that the controversy had brought to Chattanooga (Chattanooga Times. July 17. 1981. p. A1). Concerns over the economic impact of naming a street after King were quite evident in Safety Harbor. Florida. In Safety Harbor, an African-American civic group proposed that Fourth Street N be renamed because it was a prominent street that connected several neighborhoods, intersected two major roads, and passed a school and several businesses. However, the city manager expressed concern about the proposal, stating that he worried whether property values along the street would decline if it were named Martin Luther King Boulevard (St. Petersburg Times. March 7. 1990. p. 1). While several property appraisers were quoted as saying that changing a street name has no effect on land values, several citizens signed a petition in opposition to the name change out of fear that property values would be undermined. Eventually, the city commission voted to add King's name to Fourth Street rather than drop the old name (St. Petersburg Times. June 14. 1990. p. 1). The perception that MLK street renaming would lower property values was also an issue in Tampa and Tarpon Springs. Florida (St. Petersburg Times, June 5. 1993, p. IB). As seen in Chattanooga and Safety Harbor, part of the locational controversy over naming streets after King involves the issue of scale — the extent of the area covered by the street — and debates over questions such as how prominent should the street be that bears King's name and how far should the renamed street extend in relation to joining both white and black communities? Keysville, Georgia illustrates these issues rather well. In Keysville. African-American mayor Emma Gresham proposed to the city council that a road be renamed after King, a measure which passed easily. When taken before the county commission for approval to rename the street beyond the city boundaries, the street name change passed on two occasions, even after white citizens brought signed petitions in opposition. However, at the next meeting of the commission, commissioners acquiesced to growing opposition and voted against the


naming of M.L.King Rd. from county line to county line. They voted, instead, for naming the proposed street only within the city limits o f Keysville. In effect, the county commission's decision limited the geographic scale of King's commemoration and the population which would be touched by such a memorialization. since the city of Keysville is largely African-American (more than 75%) and the larger county is almost 50% white. “We were disappointed yet happy” is the way Mayor Gresham described how the black community felt about the commission's final vote (Survey o f Georgia Cities with MLK Street, Keysville. Georgia, October, 1996). Arguably, these contradictory feelings are felt by many African-Americans as they are successful in getting a street renamed but it is not the street or scale o f commemoration of their choosing. In her comments to an Atlanta newspaper, Mayor Gresham also stated: “The whites who protested the new name .. . need a little more knowledge about what Dr. King meant not only to his race but to America” (Atlanta Constitution. January 13. 1989. p. A 18). A similar case was made by the Cobb Martin Luther King. Jr. Group and the local NAACP when they attempted unsuccessfully to rename Fairground Street, a prominent Marietta street in suburban Atlanta that cuts through business districts, recreation areas, and white and black communities. Agnes Brown, a supporter of the street naming, stated: “Dr. King didn't just touch black people. . . He touched white people. He touched everybody” (Atlanta Constitution, May 13. 1993. Section XG, p. 6). In essence. Gresham and Brown advocated that, contrary to the beliefs o f some whites, the historical relevance or significance o f MLK is not limited to the black community. They further suggest that the politicized nature of the street renaming was a result of whites who opposed constructing the scale of commemoration in such a way that would disturb these race-bound notions of K ing's importance. The controversy over where and at what scale to commemorate King is not just between African-Americans and whites, however. For example, the black residents of Carrollton, Georgia were divided over whether to attach King’s name to a major


43 business route or a residential road largely within the black community. In 1995. Carrollton's city council decided to honor a request by the First Baptist Church of Carrollton to change the name of King Street to Martin Luther King. Jr. Street. King street, which consists of predominantly African-American residents and is located near the First Baptist Church, was once the hub of black businesses during the era of racial segregation but had experienced decline with integration.

Ironically, and perhaps

unknowingly, the street name change proposed by the First Baptist Church reflected the larger changes occurring in the region's commemorative landscape. King Street, which had been named in honor of a plantation owner named Kingsberry. was being reinscribed with a newer, more empowering vision of the past for African-Americans. However, the Baptist Church's proposal was opposed by the local chapter of the NAACP. which wanted Alabama Street —a busy commercial thoroughfare —renamed after King. Narva Farris, president of the Carroll County chapter of the NAACP. was quoted as saying: “We want all people to see it [street honoring King], not just black people" {Atlanta Journal/Constitution, January, 7, 1996, p. C5). The situation in Carrollton brings up questions perhaps important to many African-American and white communities as they struggle over MLK street (re)naming. Is the commemoration of King primarily the symbolic property of African-Americans and should it. therefore, be located and restricted to the geographic scale of the black community? Or, is the memorialization of King relevant to all people and should it, therefore, be extended geographically to include and integrate both blacks and whites? Clearly, these questions point to the potential importance of understanding the relationships between race, memory, and scale. How southern whites and blacks struggle among and between themselves over these questions of race, memory, and scale dramatically shapes the cultural geography and political complexities of renaming streets after King. To summarize, street names —as commemorative and geographic structures — are not easily rewritten. The naming of streets after King is more politically


44 controversial than Stump implied in his seminal study and involves a number of different parties with competing interests. Controversy over street renaming is not clearly divided along racial lines, but is shaped by social relations between and among blacks and whites. The politics of renaming streets after King is not just about whether King should be remembered, but at what scale he will be commemorated, and the relationship between renamed streets and the distribution of the city's racial and business geography. In this case, geography plays a critical role in the commemoration of King and the cultural struggles in which Georgia's African-Americans and whites currently find themselves. The remaining portion of the paper articulates a framework for understanding these cultural struggles, particularly as we explore street naming empirically in later chapters. The emphasis here on the politics underlying culture is part of recent changes taking place in the discipline as it shifts from its Sauerian origins to embrace a closer dialogue with social theory and a postmodern focus on diversity.

23

The “New” Cultural Geography For many decades, cultural geography was based heavily upon the work and

ideas of the late Carl Sauer, who taught at the University of California at Berkeley (seminal works of this school of thought were Sauer 1952; Thomas 1956; Wagner and Mikesell 1962). In the past decade or so, the orthodox "Berkeley School" of cultural geography has come under criticism for supposedly adopting and perpetuating a conception o f culture which de-emphasizes. if not ignores, the socially constructed nature of culture and the political contests involved in its construction (Duncan 1980; Cosgrove and Jackson 1987; Jackson 1989b; Cosgrove 1993, pp. 5-9). Despite a vigorous defense o f "the Berkeley School" (Price and Lewis 1993), a retheorized and redefined cultural geography continues to gain ascendancy. The cultural geography currently advocated differs from traditional, Sauerian cultural geography in several key


45 ways that will serve as the theoretical foundation of this dissertation's attempt to understand MLK street (re)naming.

2.3.1

Politics of Culture Duncan (1980) is responsible for one o f the earliest critiques of the way in which

Carl Sauer and his students conceived culture. The main point of Duncan's piece and subsequent discussions by Cosgrove (1993) and Jackson (1989b) is that Sauer, drawing inspiration from anthropologist Alfred Krober. invested in a superorganic approach to culture. In a superorganic approach, culture is viewed as being at a higher level than the individual and his/her daily social practices. Culture, according to Sauer, was “an independent force moulding people and landscapes in its image" (Anderson and Gale 1992: 3). The superorganic model unnecessarily separated culture from society and imbued culture with its own logic and causative power. In addition to the superorganic approach to culture. Sauerian cultural geography, according to his critics, was based on a rather conservative, cooperative conception o f society. As pointed out by Cosgrove (1993: 6), traditional cultural geography assumed social uniformity, devoting considerable attention to mapping and defining cultural areas, “areas occupied by groups sharing a particular culture. loosely defined in terms of ethnicity. language, nationality, or religion.” Cultural geography has. more recently, been retheorized to make a greater link between culture and society. Rather than seeing culture as above or larger than the individual and his/her relationship with society, these scholars see culture as being constantly reconstructed through social relations and practices. Duncan (1992: 38) has suggested that instead of seeing culture as something we are simply bom with or carry with us, it should be conceptualized as something we actively (re)produce and is hence “inextricable from the social structuration of society and political practice.” In analyzing society, contemporary cultural geography assumes social diversity rather than uniformity


46 and cohesion, as the traditional approach had done. Rather than ignore the inner workings of culture, as had been done by the Sauerian school, cultural geographers now focus upon the politics o f culture, i.e. how culture is constructed through struggle. negotiation, and control among and between social groups. Matthews (1995: 456) revealed many o f the assumptions underlying this new perspective when he wrote: Not all social groups enjoy the same positions of power and influence. Diversity almost inevitably leads to collisions of interest, such that some social groups exert greater or lesser effects on places around them. In these terms, landscapes are documents of power. They reflect the values and evaluations of dominant ideologies, in that their arrangements, whether intentional or not, represent particular cultural visions. Social groups close to the centre of decision making may be regarded as “insiders", whilst those whose voices are seldom heard are “outsiders.” While insightful. Matthews's characterization is not a complete picture. The politics of culture are not simply a matter o f certain “insider" social groups exerting control over “outsider” social groups. The politics of culture also centers around how less powerful groups resist dominant cultural representations that are imposed upon them and struggle for the authority to construct cultural geographies that will enhance their position, influence, and legitimacy (Anderson 1988; Jackson 1989b: chs. 4-6; Clark 1993; Dwyer 1993; Jackson 1993). In addition, as I discuss later in this chapter, geographers are increasingly questioning the notion that cultural relations can be broken down simply into two. dualistically opposing groups such as insider versus outsider. Nevertheless, as Matthews (1995) does aptly point out, it is no longer adequate to think o f society as a common, unitary whole and cultural geography is very much interested in how social groups differ and compete with each other in the way they sec. make sense of. and shape the world.


47 The city is of particular interest to contemporary cultural geographers as the arena for cultural struggles between social groups with varying levels of power. For example. Don Mitchell (1992. 1995) has examined struggles over urban public space as related to the homeless in Berkeley. California, and Peter Jackson (1993) has studied the cultural politics of race in Toronto. According to Ley (1996: 475). in a special issue of Urban Geography. the emphasis on urban cultural geography and struggles over meaning departs from traditional cultural geography that tended to emphasize the study of rural folk culture and departs from traditional urban geography that has tended to have the “market" as its “root" or guiding metaphor. Jackson (1989b) made a similar critique, adding that the Berkeley School’s focus on mainly rural landscapes reflected Sauer's anti-urban bias and his own reactionary aversion to issues of social change. Investigating MLK street (re)naming allows us to explore the politics underlying the production of culture and cultural landscapes within an urban environment. Racial and ethnic minorities are excellent examples o f social groups who often struggle for control of the production of cultures. Assimilation, which has long been one of the prevailing models for dealing with racial and ethnic differences in the U.S.. places the power to value (or de-value) cultural heritages and identities in the hands o f the dominant (white Anglo) social group. However, assimilation and the production of “hegemonic" white cultural spaces have not gone uncontested. Rather, racial and ethnic minorities struggle to redefine “American” culture and to refashion cultural landscapes. Although often neglected by scholars, one potentially important strategy of landscape transformation involves the (re)naming of place. This study of MLK street (re)naming allows us to explore the role of place naming, particularly commemorative place naming, in the cultural politics o f race and ethnicity in America. Related to this theoretical move toward the politics o f culture and the cultural struggles of marginalized groups is the examination and reconceputalization o f race. As pointed out by Jackson (1989a), geographers traditionally have been concerned with


48 measuring patterns o f residential segregation and have used terms such as race and race relations uncritically. Through their close dialogue with social geography and mainstream social theory in general, recent geographical work questions essentialist and naturalist definitions of race and emphasizes race’s socially constructed nature (e.g., Jackson and Penrose 1993; Omi and Winant 1994). Particular attention has been devoted to the street as a site of cultural display and spectacle, where the construction of race and the discourse of racism are either reinforced, contested, or both (Jackson 1993: Smith 1993). Investigating MLK street (re)naming allows us to explore how notions of race, racial differences, and racial relations are constructed socially and made meaningful culturally.

23.2

Rethinking the Role of Geography The Sauer school of cultural geography is very much associated with the

landscape approach. As evidenced by his own words, Sauer viewed the relationship between culture and geography in this way: “Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, and the cultural landscape is the result” (quoted in Anderson and Gale 1992: 4). With this in mind, the Berkeley school of cultural geography focused almost exclusively on the forms (morphology), distributions, origin, and diffusion of visible material artifacts (Cosgrove 1993: 6). In addition to encouraging an over-emphasis on artifactual. visible parts o f the landscape, Sauer’s approach also assumed a one-way relationship between space and culture. Space, in Sauer’s eyes, was simply the expression or reflection of culture. Being a firm opponent of environmental determinism. Sauer could not conceive the landscape in any other way. Later, in the I970's, the humanistic school of cultural geographers attempted to compensate for Sauer’s neglect of human agency and non-material aspects of the landscape by emphasizing the intangible, invisible qualities of place, particularly the notion of a sense of place. This work, while worthwhile, also failed to completely theorize a connection between society and space.


49 The physical landscape and its relationship with humans was very much at the center of Sauerian cultural geography with its emphasis on agriculture. In fact. Jackson ( 1989b) remarks on Sauer's fascination with geologic processes rather than social processes. It is also evident that Sauer privileged time over space. Sauer was intrigued with evolution and notions of adaptation. The socio-spatial dialectic was essentially dead under traditional cultural geography as epitomized in the idea o f sequent occupance which treated space merely as a stage upon which generations of inhabitants entered and left their cultural imprint. The job of the traditional cultural geographer was to read the landscape for traces of these past settlements and their cultures. The concept of landscape remains a central part of contemporary cultural geography, especially in the work of Denis Cosgrove (1989. 1993). Cosgrove approaches culture and cultural landscapes very much from the perspective of a svmbologist and iconographer. seeing culture as signification (i.e. the creating, reading. imposing, and opposing of meanings(s)). In fact, he offered this definition of culture: “Culture involves all those conscious and unconscious processes whereby people dwell in nature, give meaning to lives and communicate that meaning to themselves, each other, and outsiders” (1993: 6). With attention focused on the production and consumption of meaning, emphasis is placed on symbols and symbolic qualities of space, place, and landscape as they are constantly constructed and reconstructed through social relations and practices. Cosgrove identifies the landscape less as a passive artifact and more as a symbol encoded with meanings. Helga Lietner (1992: 110) aptly pointed out the importance of symbols to the “new” cultural geography: Culture is conceived not only as a varied array of values, beliefs, customs, conventions, habits, and artefacts characteristic of a particular society or historical period, but as a system of symbols embedded in, reproduced by and contested through structured social contexts....Instead o f treating the landscape as an object to be described, classified, and interpreted as a reflection of the impact of cultural groups, this new cultural geography seeks to go


50 further. It concentrates on interpreting the symbolic nature o f landscapes, paying particular attention to how the meanings enshrined in the landscape are used to advance or retard the advancement of social and political goals. Another variation on the landscape approach advocated by new cultural geographers has been the idea of the landscape as text (Duncan 1989). Knox (1991). in reading the postmodern text of Washington. D.C.. argues that the urban landscape or text not only reflects culture but also shapes society. This is a critical point in that this twoway conception of space and culture diverges from the weak, unidirectional one advocated by Sauer. As the Berkeley School had done, contemporary cultural geographers emphasize the reading of the landscape to unravel its cultural significance. Now, however, the emphasis is not placed upon simply uncovering the landscape's layers of historical use but uncovering its many layers of meaning. “A landscape may be viewed in different ways by different people....Each person or group views, uses, and constructs the same landscape in different ways: these are neither 'right' or 'wrong', but rather are part o f the many layers of meaning within one landscape” (Winchester 1992: 140). It is worth noting that the study of symbolic landscapes is not at all new to cultural geography. However, the current approach, unlike the older, emphasizes the social and political relations that underlie the production and consumption of symbolic meaning. For instance, as Anderson and Gale (1992: 7) pointed out. “While all of us participate in symbolising the world, people do not enjoy equal access to the conditions for creating those shared symbols.” Cosgrove (1989) developed a similar point when he introduced the idea o f “excluded landscapes,” geographies that were never written or built because ceratin power relations suppress their expression. The research conducted in this dissertation views the politics of (re)naming streets after King as a struggle over what social groups and individuals will have the power to weave the symbolic fabric of


51 the city, and how these symbolic struggles are grounded in political practice. larger ideological goals, and even larger patterns of social and spatial inequality. Rather than seeing the landscape as simply the reflection of culture, as Sauerian cultural geography did. contemporary cultural geographers have begun to recognize the power of space in constituting and structuring life. For instance. Duncan (1992). in his study o f an elite residential area in Vancouver, discusses how the landscape, as a repository of symbols and a signifying system, not only reflects the importance placed on class distinction and elite consumption but is central to the reproduction of these cultural assumptions. Advocating similar ideas but in a different social context. Sibley (1992) has theorized about the importance of space in the cultural construction of outsiders or outcasts. Agnew (1987) has attempted to reformulate the notion of place so that it is a more active agent in social and political relations. Place, according to Agnew. can be defined as: (1) a locale or setting for social relations; (2) a location within a wider social-economic geography; and (3) a structure of feeling. Most importantly, geographers have begun to realize the importance o f space and place in the construction of race. Along these same lines, geographers such as Smith (1989) have argued that the reproduction of racial inequality as an ideological structure is a “changeable” and “contestable” process. A change in the social structure of racial inequality requires a change in its attendant spatial structure. Although street names occupy a rather small part o f absolute space, their importance as symbolic and geographic markers makes them a central part of the city’s spatial structure and, hence, a conduit for challenging current patterns of inequality. Exploring the renaming of streets after King will provide further insight into the importance o f urban space in reshaping (or reinforcing) social relations, as well as the current state of race relations and African-American power within the South.


52 2.4

Toward a “New” Cultural Geography of Place Names Geographers have long shown great interest in studying the origin and meaning

of place names, or toponymy. Traditionally, place names have been treated as landscape artifacts that provide clues to an area's settlement history and cultural geographers have focused primarily upon cataloguing, describing, and mapping toponymic patterns. While many of these scholars researched the origins of certain place name patterns, they really did not critically analyze the role of social groups, actors, and relations in shaping the naming of places. The work o f Wilbur Zelinsky (1988), particularly his look at the ideological and political framework behind early American place naming, is a noted exception. However, it is also worth noting that Zelinsky’s primary interest lay in documenting the empirical intensity of nationalist place names and, consequently, did not fully explore the political actors and social contests involved in the inscription of America's toponym during the early republic era. Myers (1996: 238) asserted a similar criticism about traditional place name study when he stated: “A critical appreciation of power and ideology is often far from the center of concern in toponymic studies." Although still seen as somewhat outdated, toponymic work is currently undergoing a redefinition in its approach and analytical significance with the theoretical redefinition of the field of cultural geography and the greater dialogue between geography and social theory. Recent place name studies such as those by Cohen and Kliot (1992), Berg and Kearns (1996), and Myers (1996) emphasize the role of place names in larger social, political, and economic struggles and how social groups attempt to change, control, or contest the naming process. There is also greater attention on the locational struggles underlying the naming of places. In essence what is being advocated in the geography literature is an examination of the “politics o f naming.” It is within this framework that MLK street (re)naming is explored and analyzed. One of the key barriers that has hindered a full integration of place name study with critical theory has been the scant attention that place name scholars have


53 traditionally given to the specific intra-urban locational politics that are part of the toponymic process. As Azaryahu (1996) reminded us. the street naming process is a “political procedure” directed not only by ideological considerations but also decision making procedures. The decision-making politics of street naming involve not only selecting what names to place on streets (which is the focus of Azaryahu's work) but also involve the politics of selecting a street to be renamed. Studying the cultural geography o f place names has typically involved documenting the geographic occurrence o f certain naming patterns. Concerned more with identifying and mapping macro, regional patterns in place naming, traditional toponymy neglected what Myers (1996: 238) call the “performance aspects of place names,” that is. how place names are "played with as tactics of power, or used as vehicles of derision.” Perhaps most importantly, the traditional approach to place name study has failed to realize that the sheer occurrence of certain place names represents only half of the story. The larger cultural geography of place names is found by examining how place names fit into the larger symbolic and material geography of the city or town, how local political actors and groups struggle and negotiate with each other in determining not just the existence but also the intra-urban location of the place name, and how a place name's intra-urban location affects its meaning(s) among the local population. Such information is not discemable from simply mapping the occurrence of place names but can only be realized by carrying out case studies, an approach that this dissertation adopts. As consistent with the traditional school of toponymy. Stump (1988) simply measured for the presence or absence of streets named after King and thus failed to critically consider the intra-urban locational context of these streets and how these named streets, as a result of their location in the city, could symbolize different things from city to city. He failed to consider the locational controversy that surrounded the decision o f “which street will be King,” that is, what street will have its identity changed to honor King and how King's identity and memory will be linked to that specific street.


54 2.5

The Politics of Naming Places Underlying most toponymic studies is the assumption that much can be learned

about people from the names they attach to places such as parks, buildings, cities, or streets. Place names are of analytical significance because they are interpreted as symbols, portions of the landscape to which people attach meaning and from which they draw group identity. Stump (1988: 215) described what he saw as the social scientific value of studying toponymic commemorations of Martin Luther King, Jr.: The places named for...King thus represent more than simple memorials. They are public symbols o f community values, attitudes and beliefs, revealing the character of both the figure commemorated and the community that has honored him. Examination of patterns in the use of such place-names therefore offers insights into significant variations within the American social landscape. As symbols, place names reflect and embody ideologies. They are essential to understanding the political landscape (Zelinsky 1983, 1988). Contemporary researchers have come to view place naming as a critical part of the political process, as symbolic tools used to uphold or contest the legitimacy of competing national and cultural ideologies (Cohen and Kliot 1992; Yeoh 1992). Katz (1995: 112), in studying the role of Zionism in place naming, elaborated on the ideological politics of place names. Throughout history, place names have been changed to encourage identification and ties between the ideology of those who make the change and the place, in an effort to advance national ideological goals. New names are intended to provide new identifications and new connections. In addition to evidence from Israel, Katz pointed to international place name changes (such as in former Soviet Union and post-colonial Lebanon) to make the argument o f how toponyms are often used by political power structures for the purpose of reconstructing national identity. In effect, what is being advocated in the work of


55 Katz and others is an examination of “the political economy of place naming.” which examines the ideological interests and political struggles underlying the naming of places and how these struggles shape the symbolic and social meaning o f the place name. Roberts (1993). who first coined this term, stated that such an approach was sorely underdeveloped within place name studies because we have yet to fully relate a theory of place naming to a theory of social power. Myers (1996) has also been critical of what he called the “atheoretical" orientation of traditional toponymic work, adding that the limited amount of literature that has connected place names to issues o f power has focused almost exclusively on place names in terms of the imposition o f state or elite ideologies. As he argued, place naming - and the boundary-making that accompanies it -- “are strategies exercised both by those having a great deal of social power and by those comparatively lacking it” (p. 244). He encouraged the analysis of place naming as a form of resistance rather than as simply a mechanism of control. This same position was echoed by Gonzales Faraco and Murphy (1997) in their analysis of politically motivated street name changes in Spain. The use of place naming as resistance is often done subtly, as Yeoh (1992) found in colonial Singapore with the use of an informal Asian street nomenclature over the official European toponymy. However, minorities can and do contest and redefine the prevailing place name landscape through formal, political means such as when African-Americans petition local governments to rename streets after King. The “new” retheorized school of cultural geography uses Gramsci's (1985) concept of hegemony to explain how the production o f cultural landscapes serves both the ideological/political interests of the dominant social group and as a site o f resistance (Jackson 1989b: ch.3). Although not developed to its fullest and most critical extent, the concept o f hegemony represents a viable theoretical arena in which to study place naming. Hegemony refers to the fact that the dominant social group or class controls the production of cultural space in order to persuade subordinate groups to accept its


56 ideology as “common sense” or the “natural order.” However, the dominance of one form of consciousness is never complete and is challenged by the counter-hegemonic ideologies of subordinate groups. Resistance is sometimes confrontational, but most often symbolic. Symbolic resistance involves the “appropriation o f certain artifacts and significations from the dominant culture and their transformations into symbolic forms that take on new meaning and significance" for the subordinate group (Cosgrove and Jackson, 1987: 99). Place naming, like other cultural geographic practices, can be interpreted as a conduit through which symbolic domination and resistance are carried out and realized. Berg and Kearns (1996) have clearly outlined the position of place naming in the hegemonic politics o f place and identity. While deserving of much more discussion, their work offers a couple of ideas that greatly contribute to our immediate understanding of the politics of place naming. First, according to them, place naming can be seen as playing a key role in the social construction of place and the contested process of attaching meaning to places and people. Berg and Keams argued that place naming, as part of both the symbolic and material order, represented a way o f “norming" or legitimating the dominance of hegemonic systems. They also pointed out. however, that hegemonic constructions are never uncontested and that re-naming places represents the reclaiming of place and the re-appropriation of the social construction of space. In this respect, the naming or renaming of places is much more than simply a reflection of our culture (as traditional cultural geographers have implied) or simply the reflection of state and elite control (as many place name scholars have suggested), but is directly involved in the politics of/in place. Second, through an examination of place name disputes in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Berg and Keams illustrate how the contested politics of naming places is intertwined with the wider discourses of gender and racial identity. Studying public objections to the reinstatement of Maori names, the authors found that place naming


57 plays a potentially important role in identity politics and the legitimation or “norming” of certain race and gender relations. Berg and Keams' third point deals with the actors engaged in the contested politics of place naming. Citing recent work by Jackson (1994). they pointed out that race, gender, and class should not be analyzed as separate analytical variables but conceptualized as being mutually constitutive. In concluding their paper, the authors discourage against a binary approach to studying cultural politics where an actor or group is either part of the dominant, hegemonic group or the subordinate, oppositional group. Rather, the positions and identities of cultural actors with respect to the hegemonic order are often ambiguous, complexly intertwined, and sometimes contradictory. A similar argument has been made by Rose (1994). who has suggested that the conventional dualistic analysis of hegemony has failed to consider how the moments of domination and resistance are open and hybrid. Hvbridity suggests that “cultural identities are hybrid forms; marginalized cultures are neither the same as hegemonic cultures nor entirely different from them” and focuses on “cultural difference not in terms of 'us' and 'them' but in terms of multiple identities and interdependence” (Rose 1994: 49). In this respect, a full understanding of the hegemony o f place names has to consider the hybridity of identities and social relations that underlie the naming process. This dissertation suggests that King street (re)naming should be analyzed or interpreted in terms o f the “politics of place-naming,” that is, the political control, struggle and negotiation that are involved in inscribing ideologies into cultural landscapes through the symbolism of place names. Perhaps more importantly, I believe that the struggles surrounding the renaming o f streets after King are linked to, and shape larger ideological issues of, the legitimacy o f African-American identity and history in the American South, the nature of race relations within the region, and the determination of who will direct the social and symbolic construction of space within the cultural landscape. While the notion of hegemony gives us a lens through which to study, it is


58 worth noting that an examination o f King street naming could greatly broaden our understanding of the role played by place names in maintaining or challenging the ideological basis of hegemonic social systems. While critical analysis of place naming is increasingly more popular, a full understanding of the cultural politics of toponyms is yet undeveloped. I theorize that King street (re)naming represents an attempt by AfricanAmericans. as a subordinate social group, to appropriate and transform a part o f the material culture of the dominant group (street names) in order to contest and redefine the prevailing white-centered southern ideology. By placing King's name on street signs, which are indexed and referred to every day, African-Americans are perhaps hoping to refashion local populations' consciousness and advocate an ideology of race relations that will bring a greater recognition of their value and aspirations. Exercising the power to name or rename appears to have particularly strong cultural and political importance within the African-American community, inside and outside the context of naming streets. Thompson (1995) discussed, for example, the increasingly popular practice of African-Americans giving their children unique names rather than traditional, Angloderived ones, reflecting the desire of blacks to take control of the power to identify themselves. This is a particularly poignant issue when we consider the historical role that whites played in naming African slaves and how, even after emancipation. AfricanAmericans often just assumed the name of their master. Believing his name to have originated from white slave holders, the famous civil rights leader Malcolm Little changed his last name to “X." The challenge of exploring the politics of naming streets after King is understanding exactly how these streets fit into the ideological struggles of AfricanAmericans. The case studies in the following chapters seek to determine to what extent African-Americans actually view the street naming process as an ideological weapon against an oppressive white cultural structure. At the same time, however, this study


59 examines how blacks differ in how they see the larger social and political function of these streets. Conceivably, some African-American coalitions are using street naming as a device to simply orient and consolidate the “black” community and have little interest in gaining widespread acceptance from the white community. Most likely, both perspectives exist and operate in shaping the cultural geography of MLK street naming. It is also conceivable that the hegemonic southern social order is not strictly a white construction but a hybrid mix of social groups, alliances, and agendas that are “black" as well as “white.” In this respect, an understanding of the cultural geography of street (re)naming must address how place naming is not only part of the symbolic struggle between black and white southerners but also a form of symbolic resistance or domination within the African-American community. In order to be of theoretical and empirical value, the hegemonic politics of MLK street (re)naming must be theorized in such a way as to explain why African-Americans would join whites in opposing the renaming of a street while African-Americans and whites, in a different urban political context, struggle against each other over street (re)naming. In summary. I theorize that the hegemonic cultural politics underlying the naming o f streets after King is not a simply a dualism of white versus black (although this is expected to be a strong dimension) but is a complex and sometimes contradictory set of social and political relations. The case studies in the following chapters explore, evaluate, and illustrate these ideas in more depth.

2.6

The Politics of Memory Sociologists, particularly collective memory theorists, have devoted considerable

attention to defining the link between ideology and memory, and the role which commemoration plays in society (Halbwachs 1980; Schwartz et al 1986; Schudson 1989; Schwartz 1990; Halbwachs 1992). They assert that while the mechanics of remembering or forgetting the past certainly lie with the individual memory, it is by and large a


60 socially directed matter (Halbwachs 1980: 22). Many of our recollections of the past are "collective memories" that society constructs and transmits to us. Schwartz (1991: 302) describes in detail how memories are constructed socially: Every member of society, even the oldest, learns most of what he [sic] knows about the past through social institutions - through oral chronicles preserved by tradition, written chronicles stored in archives, and commemorative activities (making portraits, statues, shrines, collecting relics, naming places, observing holidays and anniversaries) that enable institutions to distinguish significant events from the mundane, and so infuse the past with moral meaning. These processes, chronicling and commemoration, constitute the subject matter of collective memory research (emphasis added). Commemoration plays a vital role in constituting and guiding the social construction of collective memory. The past is made "memorable" (made into a memory) through commemorative activities, of which place naming is perhaps one of the most common and accessible to people. As pointed out by Azarvahhu (1996). the cultural power of commemorative street names is that they inscribe and introduce a certain vision of the past into “the ordinary settings of everyday life” and thus “concretize hegemonic structures of power and authority” (p. 312). As he also suggested, it is perhaps the seemingly obvious and mundane nature of these symbols that has contributed to their neglect by social scientists. Where does commemorative street naming —as a distinctive symbolic and geographic practice -- fit into the larger genre of commemoration, representation, and expression? As mentioned earlier in the chapter. Stump, and perhaps other scholars, tended to treat street naming as less important and less controversial than other forms o f memorializing. However, recent literature argues that street naming, particularly for commemorative purposes, is more significant and contested than scholars have traditionally suggested. Yeoh (1992, 1996) has done considerable work establishing the


61 political and ideological importance of street naming. She argued that street (re)naming held an important ideological place in Singapore's attempt to build a sense of “nation” and “national identity” after independence. As she also pointed out. however, the process of removing European names from streets and re-inscribing them to reflect Singapore's multiracial character brought with it controversy. She characterized this place naming project as “an uneven, negotiated process of constant mediations rather than a static consensual once-and-for-all translation" (1996. p. 304). Moreover, she stated, “this process (of street renaming) is not without negotiated encounters as people questioned, challenged, or came up with alternative readings o f both the forms and meanings o f street-names” (1996: 305). In essence, what Yeoh is suggesting is that the street naming can be seen as a potentially politicized and problematic symbolic act. Azarvahu (1996: 1997) has also recently broadened our understanding of the significance of street naming, particularly commemorative street naming. In outlining “the power of commemorative street names.” he pointed out that commemorative street names are an important part of modem political culture because they not only fulfill a practical role o f providing a spatial and semiotic orientation to the city but also participate in the construction and reification of a selective vision of the past. Commemoratively named streets, like any memorial structure, represent geographies or places of memory' and. as such, embody collective memories o f the past that are not simply given but are embedded in, and reconstructed, through varying social contexts (Halbwachs 1980: Schwartz et al 1986; Schwartz 1990). As illustrated by Charlesworth (1994), places o f memory are open to multiple, contesting interpretations as well as appropriation by certain social and political groups. And, as suggested by Johnson (1995), geography is not simply the “incidental material backdrop” for memory but plays an active role in constructing the meaning of commemoration (p. 51). Azarvahu (1996) suggests that street naming is a powerful form of commemoration because it


62 incorporates a certain version of history into the spatial practices of everyday life. On this point, he wrote: Their (commemorative street names) apparent dailiness and apparent insignificance as well as their recurrent and unreflected use in various contexts, both ordinary and extraordinary, renders the past they represent tangible and intimately familiar (Azaryahu 1996: 321). Because of its practical importance, street naming inscribes its symbolic and ideological message into many facets of daily urban life such as through road maps, phonebook listings, the sending and receiving of mail, advertising billboards, and. of course, road signs. Azaryahu also pointed out: “Renaming streets . .. has an immediate effect on daily life, on language, and on space” (1996: 318). Viewed in this way. we should not be particularly surprised to see intense political struggles over street (re(naming What Azaryahu and Yeoh suggest through their work is that street names should be seen and hence studied as significant commemorative and geographic structures whose production is likely the result of political interactions and mediations between social groups and actors as they attempt to control, challenge, and change cultural landscapes. Street naming has a unique and powerful position in the larger genre of commemoration, which it shares with holidays, monuments/memorials, and other toponyms. As noted by Gallagher (1995: 2) in her examination of the public commemoration of King, a holiday differs from memorials, monuments, and conceivably street names by the fact that it “impinges on the lives of most, if not all. citizens by virtue of its inclusion on calenders and in school schedules." By the same token, however, monuments, memorials, and street names —while limited in terms of influence —give the past a spatial permanence that endures throughout the year long after the passing of a holiday. While sharing permanence with memorials and


63 monuments, the geographic influence of street names is perhaps even greater. As aptlyexplained by Yvonne Aikens. who pushed to have a street named after King in Tampa: A street touches more people than if they had just named a building after him downtown...Peop!e who wouldn't go to a building or a park named for King drive on a major thoroughfare such as Buffalo (now Martin Luther King. Jr. Blvd.) for business or personal reasons....They see the name at intersections, on signs pointing to the road, on maps. It pops up on addresses, letters, business cards, constantly keeping King's name before the public....More people come in contact with it (St. Petersburg Times. April 23. 1990. p. IB). Arguably, the commemorative street name differs from other more ornate and formal means of memorializing in that people's symbolic interaction with street names is less spiritually charged (Azaryahu 1996). Perhaps the exception to this argument is the emotions evoked when the proposal to rename a street is first debated, a public dedication or unveiling of the renamed street is held, or the renamed street is combined with another form of commemoration such as when many African-American communities hold MLK holiday activities on a renamed street. Also, unlike monuments and memorials, commemorative street names allow collective memories to be “incorporated into spheres of social life that seem to be totally detached from political contexts...and to be integrated into intimate realms of human interactions and activities” (Azaryahu 1996: 321). As Azaryahu (1996) also pointed out, the power and politics o f commemorative street naming lie in its dual and simultaneous existence as historical referent and spatial designation. This is not to suggest that a street name’s practical function makes its symbolic, commemorative function unimportant. Rather, the commemorative or symbolic importance of named streets comes from their importance as markers of location. While monuments and memorials are like street names in that they are places or sites of memory, they do not serve the same geographic or locational role as the street


64 name. As suggested in the editorial below, the connectivity of streets is perhaps part of their commemorative power and politicized nature: Renaming a street is a uniquely appropriate way to honor King. Streets unite diverse neighborhoods. They touch all ages, all races, all economic levels, and the resident and the visitor equally. They link people and places that otherwise would remain insular (St. Petersburg Times. April 22. 1990. p. 2). Of course, because of racial and economic segregation in cities, not all streets unite diversity in this way and as is evident in naming streets after King, it is often difficult to rename streets that unite diverse elements of the city. However, this statement gives us keen insight into perhaps why African-Americans and other minorities are choosing commemoration through street naming and. more importantly, pushing for the renaming of large, prominent streets. While contributing to its commemorative power, it is the potential of streets to touch so many different groups and actors which makes renaming so controversial relative to other forms of memorialization such as monuments or even the naming of parks. And unlike a monument or memorial, a renamed street can not be as easily avoided, bypassed, or ignored. In many ways, the political dynamics behind the renaming of streets after King are similar to those behind establishing and observing a King holiday. The sphere of influence of street (re)naming and holidays often extends itself into the lives and geographies of people who may not identify with the commemoration or the person being commemorated. However, unlike a holiday, a change in street name lasts longer than one day a year. Because street names are an intimate and enduring part o f everyday life, we should not be surprised to see particularly intense political struggles over their commemorative naming or renaming. This is essentially a reversal of Stump's original argument about the larger significance of street names.


65 Through commemoration —whether through street naming, holiday-making, or monument-building—society's collective memory of the past is constantly being reconstructed in a way that will serve present social needs and ideological interests. However, while the past is reconstructed to serve present interests, the reconstruction process is not done freely without some constraints (Schudson 1989). People's ability to reconstruct society's collective memory is limited by competition and conflict with other people wishing to refashion the past in a different way. "Control of the past is disputed and the past becomes a contested terrain” (Schudson 1989: 112), because social groups have vested interests in competing for control of the past. The transmission of a commonly accepted conception of history is vital to the legitimation o f established social and political orders. By the same token, the overthrow of existing social orders requires the creation and diffusion of new. alternative interpretations o f the past. The potential struggle and contest over whose conception o f the past will prevail constitutes the politics o f memory. In many ways, the literature on the politics of memory resembles the literature on the politics of place naming. While very critical of the use of memory for the purposes of social control and the role of government and commercial elites in inventing the traditions which drive popular thought and action (e.g.. see Gillis 1994), there has been a less concerted focus on the reconstruction of collective memory by the marginalized and the struggles they face in doing so. Memory is of critical importance to social groups as they attempt to define and redefine themselves. As Healv (1991: 215) aptly put it: “In our memory lies the raw materials from which we fashion the representations by which we signify to ourselves and others who we are." Because of the strong connection between memory and identity, commemorative spaces —whether they are museums, memorials, historical districts, or street names —are potential sites of struggle over possession and interpretation o f the past, what Charlesworth (1995) has referred to as “places of


66 memory.'1 As Edward Ayers (1996: 6) recently stated, our collective memory is inherently political because: ...it is about defining “us" against them -- whether the “us” is the nation-state, ethnic group, geographic population, family, or organization —any group with a recognizable past to which it can lay claim. Every group must tell a story to itself about itself, who it is and why it came to be. what memories it cherishes, why it deserves to be taken seriously and respected. I propose that (re)naming streets after MLK serves as a symbolic conduit through which black southerners are attempting to establish and communicate a set of ideological values about race relations and their own position and identity within society. Just as the ideology of racism has attendant conceptions of the past that characterize the perceived inferiority and dependency of blacks. African-Americans must reconstruct the collective memory in a way that recognizes and appreciates the African-American struggle for equality, integration, and freedom from repression. The reconstruction the South's collective memory through street (re)naming is constrained by the “politics o f memory.” that is. by competition and resistance from other social actors and groups also seeking to define the region's collective memory. The commemoration of King is not the first time that blacks have struggled to redefine public memory. For instance. Sandage (1993) has explored the appropriation o f Lincoln's memory and memorial by African-Americans in the time leading up to and during the early civil rights movement. Defining the politics of street naming requires understanding how King's memory is embedded in. reconstructed by, and realized through the cultural politics of race in the American South. Investigating the role of race in shaping public memory would, o f course, involve examining struggles between blacks and whites over the legitimacy and meaning o f King’s memory, particularly as they challenge the dominance o f more traditional, Civil War-centered conceptions o f the past. Indeed, the notion of creating a new geography o f African-American memory must be examined in relation to


67 corollary attempts to de-Confederatize the cultural landscape, that is. the removal of Confederate symbols from the landscape. In order for black southerners to fully reconstruct the region's collective memory, they must also produce what Burke (1989) termed “social amnesia.” In addition to trying to place a respectful image of King in the social memory of southerners, African-Americans are also attempting to persuade southerners to forget certain conceptions of the past that go against the grain of a new ideology of race relations advocated by blacks. Quite possibly. King street naming, particularly renaming, is a struggle that centers around the politics o f forgetting as well as a politics o f remembering. Arguably, however, the public remembrance of King is also shaped by relations, negotiations, and contests within the black and white communities, as well as between these two groups. Because o f competing ideological goals within each racial community, it is conceivable, if not expected, that there will be competing claims made on. For instance, how do African-Americans differ in conceptualizing the historical meaning of King and hence the most appropriate way of honoring him? Rhea (1997) pointed to the different viewpoints that exist within the African-American community about the meaning of black heritage, specifically a tension between representing black history as African-centered or American-centered. Within the Americanist vision of black memory, there may also be competition over how King and the Civil Rights Movement should be commemorated. As Rhea (1997) pointed out, Civil Rights Museums such as those in Birmingham and Memphis emphasize the movement in “black verus white” terms while making no mention of King’s critique of the black middle class and his championing of the poor, which transcended all racial and ethnic boundaries. This is very much Jacqueline Smith’s vision of King as she protests the existence of the Memphis museum. In 1997. Judy Kennard of Westland University, Michigan also broke with conventional patterns of commemoration when she and 600 other volunteers had a “day o f work” during MLK holiday in which participants painted and cleaned schools


68 and other facilities (Detroit News. January 20, 1997, Sec. C. p. 4). She was quoted in a newspaper as saying: “We need to get away from the routine and do something beneficial and fun. We need community service. That's what Martin Luther King Dav is all about.” In addition to differences in the representation of King's views on class and poverty, there is perhaps also debate over his historical importance in relation to other competing commemorative interests. For instance. Savannah. Georgia's Civil Rights Museum, while being located on a street named after King, makes very little mention of the leader. The Civil Rights Movement is very much represented in terms of local events, landmarks, and figures. When asked why King did not have a more prominent place in the museum, a tour guide informed me that King “had not played an active role” in Savannah's movement. The Savannah case illustrates very well the need to survey the geography o f King's memory in as many places as possible and from as many points of view as possible. To return to a concept introduced in the previous section, a study of the politics of commemorating King should be done recognizing the hybridity of racial identities and the conceptions of the past which serve as the basis o f those identities. For instance, if and when do blacks and whites take positions on street naming that appear contradictory, based upon on our traditional hegemonic assumptions about race relations? To what extent do African-Americans differ over how and why to evoke the memory of King? When do whites and blacks hold complementary, rather than contradictory, positions on the issue of commemorating King through street (re)naming? These situations, which appear rather contradictory and unexplainable from the perspective of traditional hegemonic cultural politics, are something to be expected when one recognizes and explores what I term the “hybrid politics of memory," that is, how the struggle to commemorate and interpret the past is not simply a struggle between the dominant and subordinate groups but the political negotiation of a series of complex, intertwined historical subjectivities and interests.


69 2.7

The Politics of Scale Collective memory theorists have long recognized the importance of space to

memory, particularly the significance of physical surroundings as reminders and reinforcers of memories (e.g.. Feelev-Hamik 1991). Commemorative space functions as a fixed symbolic structure with an inertia that resists and restricts changes in the production of memory (Halbwachs 1980). Schudson (1989) spoke to this idea of the spatial fixity of memory as well when he described how the past is not reconstructed freely because attempts to remove commemorative landscapes (e.g. museums, plaques, statues) often “create public controversy that revives rather than erases memory” (p. 109). This is an important point that applies to our understanding o f King street naming. Attempts to reconstruct the region's collective memory through King street (re)naming are perhaps limited by the sheer fact that existing street names have what Schudson (1989) referred to as their own “self-perpetuating rhetorical power” and there is. therefore, resistance to changing them. Ironically enough, at the same time that King street (re)naming is attempting to reconstruct the collective memory around certain conceptions of the past, the process is intensifying competing claims on the past from the traditional definers o f the collective memory. After considering this, it becomes clear why King street naming, particularly renaming, faces such difficult obstacles and African-Americans often fail to have the prominent, well established streets renamed. While insightful, this treatment of geography is somewhat limited. Collective memory theorists fail to fully realize the politically contestable and contradictory nature of space and have not conceptualized how scale, also a social construction which is struggled over, affects the production of memory. In fairness to these theorists, however, geographers have also been remiss in fully exploring the connections between geography and memory. Indeed, as Johnson (1995: 63) stated: “geographers are just beginning to examine the relationship between the memorialization of the past and the spatialization of public memory.” In this dissertation, I attempt to develop a fuller and more critical


70 understanding of the “spatialization o f memory.” which I envision as the larger project of recognizing the many ways that geography enters into and affects the cultural practice of commemorating the past. Conducting such a project requires moving beyond the Sauerian-like conceptualization that geography simply reflects memory and examining, instead, how geography constitutes and structures memory. Space is a social product whose production and reproduction is open to contradiction, conflict, and transformation (Harvey 1985; Soja 1985; Soja 1989; Lefebvre 1991; Herod 1991a). The politics o f space refers to the struggle, negotiation, and control between social groups as they compete for production and control of space (Agnew 1987; Mitchell 1992; Routledge 1992; Hannah 1993; Hershkovitz 1993: Kong 1993). Scale is also a contestable social construction (Smith 1984; Smith and Dennis 1987; Herod 1991b). Scale is actively produced as the “geographical resolution of processes of cooperation and competition between and among social groups” (Herod 1991b: 82). Because scale is forged out of social cooperation and competition, there is a certain politics to its production. This politics of scale, like the politics of space, constitutes and structures social relations. As pointed out by Herod (1997), scale has traditionally been thought of as a static category for organizing space and not until recently have geographers critically considered how scale is constructed and reconstructed through social and political practice. Building upon and extending the work o f Smith (Smith 1984; Smith and Dennis 1987), who theorized about the role of capital in constructing and manipulating scale, Herod (1991b, 1997) has explored how social groups and actors, specifically labor, struggle to make geographic scale. Herod's (1997) argument that scale is made and remade through ordinary, everyday social practices has profound implications for studying the production and importance o f scale outside o f discussions of capital and labor. Indeed, Smith (1993) has followed Herod’s lead somewhat by theorizing about the production of scale as a political strategy of


71 resistance among the homeless of New York City. He directly linked the importance of the creation of scale to political struggle: Scale demarcates the sites of social contest, the object as well as the resolution of contest. Viewed this way, the production of scale can begin to provide the language that makes possible a more substantive and tangible spatialized politics. It is geographical scale that defines the boundaries and bounds the identities around which control is exerted and contested (p. 101). Collective memories of the past, like all cultural products, are not just geographically expressed but are also spatially constituted. As again asserted by Johnson (1995). geography is “as intrinsic to memory as historical consciousness in the definition o f national identity” (p. 55). The social struggles that surround the construction and control of space and scale potentially affect struggles over the construction and control of the past. This dissertation examines to what extent space and scale figure directly into the politics of redefining the South's collective memory of King. I theorize that scale, specifically struggles over constructing the scale of King's memory, demarcates the politics of renaming streets after MLK. Specifically. I argue that the cultural geography of (re)naming streets after King is significantly affected by the politics of scale, i.e., the struggles between and among black and white southerners as they determine, control, contest, and negotiate the scale at which King will be memorialized. Although not discussed in these terms before, scale is an intrinsically important aspect of memorializing and commemorating the past. The scale at which memory is produced (or commemoration is carried out) determines, in larger measure, the cultural influence of that historical representation and the population that will have their identitydefined by this commemoration. The production and control of geographic scale are critical strategic issues as African-Americans attempt to contest the existing geography of memory and attempt to reconstruct the region's collective memory. In order for black


southerners to truly redefine the southern collective memory (especially of southern whites) the scale at which King is commemorated through street (re)naming must be constructed outside the confines of the African-American community. King street (re)naming should be conceptualized as an African-American struggle to create and control the scale of collective memory, which is of large importance in determining whether or not they fully redefine the ideology of race relations in the South. However. when African-American communities use King street (re)naming to reconstruct the region's collective memory, they do so in a region long predicated on the construction and perpetuation of unequal and segregated spaces. Despite the removal of legal. political, and some economic barriers by the Civil Rights movement, the South is still operating in many ways, socially and culturally, within a Jim Crow-stvle geography that defines the very extent to which African-Americans can organize and struggle for space. At the heart of the production and maintenance of Jim Crow space is the construction and policing of geographic scale, that is, certain activities by blacks are allowed in certain places as long as they do not penetrate past the scale of the black community and disrupt segregated space. This pre-existing notion of a proper and an improper scale of black mobilization and expression is quite evident in decisions and struggles over street naming. Stump (1988: 210) cited an excellent example of this: In 1972 the City Commission of Montgomery, Alabama, voted to name seven blocks of a city street after King, in response to a petition by 10.000 blacks. Within two weeks the Commission rescinded this action under pressure from white opponents to the change.... This objection derived in part from the fact that, although the street in question ran through a black residential area, it also contained white-owned businesses and a white Masonic lodge.... They indicated that they would not object if a street located entirely within the black community were named after King. Consequently, in examining the cultural geography of naming streets after King, it is necessary to explore the role o f whites in controlling and contesting the scale of commemorating King.


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At the same time, however. African-Americans hold strong, and perhaps conflicting, feelings and beliefs about what constitutes an appropriate scale at which to commemorate King. As a result, this dissertation examines how African-Americans conceptualize the issue of scale in relation to the politics of street (re)naming. It is quite possible that African-Americans are satisfied with, and perhaps even prefer, having King commemorated only at the scale of the black community. Perhaps they see King as a “black leader” and feel that broadening his commemoration to the white community creates an inappropriate scale of memory. This dissertation research explores how the notion of a “scale of memory” enters into decisions and struggles over street naming and how social groups and actors, white and black, conceptualize and shape the scale of remembering King as they work through the construction of their own hybrid identities. I theorize and attempt to show through this dissertation's case studies that rather than geography simply serving as a backdrop for memory, it plays a role in constituting and structuring the reconstruction of the past, as is evident in the importance that scale plays in remembering MLK through street naming.

2.8

The Politics of Reconstructing Public Space (Re)naming streets after King is also controversial because it involves a

reconstruction of the identity and symbolic meaning of public space. As established by Goheen (1994) in his analysis of 19th century Toronto, streets have long served as important arenas for contesting and negotiating the use of urban public space. I suggest in this section that our understanding o f MLK street (re)naming, and toponymic research in general, can be advanced by examining street and place (re)naming as part of the contested practice of reconstructing public space. Building upon ideas articulated by Goheen (1994: 432-433) and Curry (n.d.), I suggest that street names constitute public space in three fundamental ways. First, ownership of the names attached to public streets lies theoretically outside the private


74 sphere, although the process of naming is often heavily influenced by private property and commercial interests. In general, however, the naming and renaming of streets occurs through the governmental actions of public officials, however sensitive (or insensitive) these individuals are to “public” concerns. Second, street names are public space in that they have a wide accessibility and generality to their use. While perhaps seen as the symbolic property of those living along the named street, numerous social groups and actors use the names attached to streets in numerous different ways. Third, street names play an important role in constructing the public meaning of places, specifically through the process of particularization, categorization, and association (Curry n.d.). Clearly, naming a street represents a means of inscribing public space with a particular and unique identity. Indeed, the attraction of naming streets after King involves establishing a distinctive. African-American presence in a landscape that is otherwise devoid of such a permanent public symbols. But, street naming also constructs the public meaning and identity of places through the process of categorization. Naming a street after King is not simply a process of making that street unique, but also represents a way of linking that street and its city with other renamed streets and their cities. Some African-Americans, in convincing their governments to rename a street after King, point to numerous other communities who have already renamed streets. In essence, these groups are asking: “Why are we not a part of this group or category o f cities?" and “Do we really want to be seen as different from this group or category o f cities?” Hence, street names help to (re)construct the meaning of public spaces by associating them with certain symbols. As established in the introductory chapter, Martin Luther King is a powerful symbolic figure in American society and, as such, evokes great reaction from people in terms o f whether they wish to be associated with him. In this case, association and categorization work together. Many Americans associate MLK and his achievements strictly with the AfricanAmerican community, thus affecting how they racially categorize streets named for


75 King. This process was evident in Chattanooga's street naming when the opposing real estate developer feared that the street's commemorative, and hence racial, association would hurt his ability to rent office space. The importance of categorization and association was also shown in Riverside, California, where white parents believed that a school named after King would give the false impression that the school and its students were predominantly black, an association which they believed would hurt their children's chances of entering college. In summary, place naming constitutes an activity conducted in public space because o f its public ownership, the wide accessibility- and generality of its use, and its role in constructing the public meaning and identity of places. If street naming is an important practice conducted in public space, then how should we conceptualize the nature o f public space and the role o f place naming in current struggles over the definition and use of public space? Geographers are increasingly interested in understanding public space, although none has examined the role of street naming. Scholars such as Ruddick (1996) have established the importance of public space as a medium for constructing and contesting identities at various scales. Much of this research problematizes the idea of “open” and “accessible" public space. For example, as illustrated by Valentine (1996), the construction and reconstruction of public space as we know it often requires the marginalization and control of children and teenagers. As she also points out, however, it is the public space of the street where adult power is often challenged and contested. While exclusive in nature, public space is, however, open to multiple and often competing constructions by different groups and actors with varying degrees of power and access to public space. As suggested by Staeheli and Thompson (1997), contests over the meaning and use of public space are about “competing definitions of who belongs to the public, who is a citizen, and what the boundaries o f the community should be” (p. 29).


76 Of this emerging literature. Mitchell (1995) has contributed a great deal to defining the nature of public space in contemporary cities. Building upon Lefebvre's theories about the socially constructed nature of space. Mitchell suggests that public space can be envisioned in different ways. Specifically, public space can serve as: (1) representational space (appropriated or lived spaces, spaces in use), (2) representations o f space (controlled, planned, and ordered space), and (3) spaces for representation (“a place where political movements can stake out the space that allows them to be seen (1995: 115)”). As he pointed out, “Public space is the product of competing ideas about what that space —order and control or free, and perhaps dangerous, interaction—and who constitutes 'the public'” (Mitchell 1995: 115). According to Mitchell, the contemporary city is characterized by the increasing dominance of an orderly, controlled, consumptiondriven vision o f public space (representations of space) at the sacrifice of public space as a place of unmediated political interaction and expression (spaces for representation). For example, he has focused on how the orderly, controlled vision of public space, as articulated in laws, is literally squeezing out the ability of the homeless to live and imagine public space in their own ways (Mitchell 1995; 1997). Although not put in this context before, place naming can be analyzed in relation to the ongoing cultural struggles over the nature public space. I suggest that the controversy over MLK street naming is linked to competing ideas about the use of place names as a part of public space, as well as disputes over the scale at which King should be commemorated. Contemporary American place naming is characterized by two movements. On the one hand, as embodied in naming streets after King, there is a vision of place names, particularly street names, as conduits for political expression. In addition to honoring King, African-Americans conceptualize street naming as a means of making a political and cultural statement about the importance of all blacks, in effect giving them the space necessary to “represent themselves as a legitimate part o f ‘the public’” (Mitchell 1995:


77

115). To borrow from Mitchell, these groups advocate the notion o f place names as spaces for representation. On the other hand, the second and more dominant trend is toward increased order and control in place naming. This trend is best reflected in the laws governing street renaming. For example, in Dinwiddie County. Virginia, residents seeking to change the name of their street must file an application, submit a petition showing support for the change by at least 50 percent of residents on the street, and pay $150 (Richmond News Leader. August 22. 1990. Section: Plus. p. 1). In Leon County. Florida, the law requires that three-fourths of property owners support a proposed street naming when it involves naming a new street. When a street already has a name, the decision to change must be unanimous and carries a $500 fee (Tallahassee Democrat. September 12. 1997. p. 6B). Because of increased street name change requests (perhaps as a result o f the first movement), city commissioners in Augusta. Georgia considered an ordinance prohibiting renaming streets for 100 years after the original naming. When a street becomes eligible to be renamed. 66 percent of property owners along the street would have to approve. In some instances, the need for order and control is necessary in place naming, particularly when operating a 911 emergency response system. However, much of this need for orderly place naming is linked to the desire by politicians, city planners, and local business interests not to disrupt patterns of production and consumption within the city. To again borrow from Mitchell, these groups advocate the notion of place names as representations o f space. As Zelinsky (1989) pointed out. much of contemporary place naming, particularly street naming, is characterized by a heightened sensitivity to producing comforting, commercially potent images. In some cases, street names are literally for sale. For example, the cities of Palm Beach and DelRay Beach, Florida auctioned off the right to rename streets for as much as $ 10.000 each (Sun Sentinel, November 3, 1988, p. IB; Sun Sentinel, January 24, 1990. p. 2).


78 Beyond the politics of remembering King, the politics of naming streets for him also has to be analyzed in relation to this larger struggle over place names as spaces for representation versus place names as representations o f space. I theorize that AfricanAmericans face great opposition toward street naming not simply because of competing ideas about King, his historical importance, and the extent to which people identify with him. They also struggle to have streets renamed because they do so in cities in which “controlled representation is regarded as natural and desirable” (Mitchell 1995: 120). This style of constructing space, in turn, limits the perceived legitimacy o f AfricanAmericas as members o f “the public”. The locational politics of selecting a street to name after King involve a struggle between those, particularly petitioning AfricanAmericans. who see public space (and the names that identify it) as an arena for political interaction versus those, particularly business owners along streets, who expect place names to support the notion of an ordered, controlled, consumer-friendly notion of public space. The analytical challenge, and the one adopted in this dissertation, is to examine the extent to which the politics of MLK street (re)naming are affected by competing ideas about what constitutes an “appropriate” use of place names as public space.


Chapter 3 Documenting and Analyzing the Distribution of MLK Street (Re)Naming

3.1

Purpose of Chapter The purpose of this chapter is to document and analyze spatial variation in the

distribution of MLK street (re)naming. It will begin by identifying national patterns of street (re)naming and then focus analysis on patterns within the states of the traditional “Confederate” South, devoting particular attention to Georgia. States of the Confederacy included Alabama. Arkansas. Florida. Georgia, Louisiana. Mississippi. North Carolina. South Carolina. Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. As established in chapter one, the academic and lay community knows very little about the distribution of MLK streets. Most o f us in our travels can testify to seeing a growing number of streets (re)named after King, but the exact dimensions, volume, and timing of this new movement are unknown. Stump (1988) conducted the first and only known study to measure the geographic frequency of King street (re)naming. However, his research, in addition to being a decade old. suffers from a number of methodological and theoretical shortcomings. As a result, particular attention will be devoted to updating and improving upon Stump's earlier empirical work. Specifically, this chapter intends to: 1. identify the current location of MLK streets using new, electronic approaches to place name research and to map the general location and distribution of street (re)naming across the nation; 2. evaluate the usefulness of these new electronic approaches over previously used methods;

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80 3. examine regional variation in street (re)naming. looking specifically at the frequency and nature of (re)named streets in the South versus other regions and the nation as a whole; 4. describe, statistically, the types of cities in the South where MLK street (re)naming is taking place, looking specifically at (i) the distribution of King street (re)naming along the South's urban hierarchy (particularly among small cities and towns) and (ii) the distribution of King street (re)naming in relation to the relative size of the African-American population in the region’s cities; 5. describe, statistically, the types of streets in the South that are (re)named after King, looking specifically at their place within the city's social and business geography -issues whose importance has been established either in this dissertation or other accounts of street (re)naming; 6. explore temporal patterns in street (re)naming. using Georgia as a case study. The chapter is organized into three sections. Section one introduces and critiques Stump's work on MLK street (re)naming. In doing so. I explain the rationale behind pursuing the analysis contained in this chapter. Section two discusses the data and methods used in identifying, measuring, and mapping patterns of street (re)naming. It emphasizes the potential importance of electronic phone directories in conducting place name research. Section three presents and interprets the findings of the analysis.

3.2

Stump's Study of MLK Street (Re)Naming Using the 1987 National Five-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory. Stump

(1988) found 87 streets in the coterminous United States which were (re)named after King. O f those 87 streets, 47 (or 54%) were located in the states of the Old Confederate South. Although he utilized the larger, census definition of the South, Stump concluded that King street (re)naming was more common in the South than in any other region. On a state level, Stump found Texas (with 16 streets) and Florida (with 11 streets) to have


81 the most. The states of Georgia and California had the third largest number equally with both having 5 MLK streets. Stump's work is a seminal text for anyone attempting to understand the cultural geography of MLK street (re)naming. However, there are a number of problems in relying solely upon his study. First. Stump published his results in 1988. a decade ago. We really have no idea of the current distribution o f street (re)naming inside or outside of the southern United States. For example, it is likely that street (re)naming has continued to increase as the federal holiday honoring King becomes a more permanent part of many people’s cultural life and as the idea o f street (re)naming diffuses to other communities. An updated count of cities with these streets is clearly needed. Bycompiling such data, we can then re-evaluate the position of the South in relation to national patterns of commemoration. This dissertation hypothesizes that King street (re)naming is more frequent and a topic most salient when studied in the context of southern culture and politics. The second problem with Stump's study is that his data on street names came from a spatially biased source, the National Five-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory as published by the U.S. postal service. The postal directory used by Stump did not list street names for towns with just one Zip Code, a situation quite common in the non-metropolitan South. A number of places, particularly at the lower end o f the urban hierarchy, could very well have been excluded from his 1988 findings. Stump addressed the incompleteness o f the data source as follows: Reliance upon these sources may have excluded some streets...named after...King in smaller communities, but such omissions are likely to be few in number and should not affect the validity of the following analysis (p. 205). Essentially. Stump implied that smaller towns were not really worthy of study because one can assume that street (re)naming is not taking place there. He provided no evidence for why he felt that King street (re)naming is primarily a larger urban experience. In


82 contrast, my own preliminary research indicates that street (re)naming is certainly taking place in small communities and towns. Yet we know very little about the actual statistical frequency of street (re)naming at this end of the urban scale. How does the frequency o f street (re)naming vary with size of town/city? In order to fully address this question, a more definitive and comprehensive data source needs to be utilized. Arguably, such a resource should also be electronically-based in order to allow for more efficient collection, management, and visualization of data. One of the key disadvantages in using the National Five-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory is the fact that it is in book form and thus requires searching by hand. Beyond the methodological necessity of documenting street (re)naming patterns in smaller population centers, there is perhaps a much larger theoretical importance to studying the commemoration of King in relation to city size. There is a growing, yet still underdeveloped, literature that focuses upon the quality of life and experiences of African-Americans in the rural and small town American South (Snipp 1996: Horton et al. 1995: Spence 1993; Lichter 1989). Our most recent glimpse into the state of race relations in southern small towns has come from the news industry as they reported on the string o f black church burnings in the region during the past few years (Gordon. 1996). The aforementioned research, and the attacks on black churches, appear to point to continued inequality and discrimination. Perhaps an examination of MLK street (re)naming will provide additional insight into the activities and struggles of AfricanAmericans in the non-metropolitan South. The third problem inherent in Stump's study was the lack of attention given to describing the types of cities where street (re)naming was taking place. For example. Stump made no attempt to examine the street (re)naming process in relation to the racial composition of cities. He made a strong implication that the popularity of street (re)naming in the South was a function of, among other things, the large black population which lived in the region. In addition, news accounts o f (re)naming streets


83 after King characterize it as initiated by black communities as they struggle to redefine the symbolic text of the city. Is there a relationship between the occurrence of street (re)naming and the relative size of the African-American population within cities? And. if so, what is the nature of that relationship? By establishing such a relationship we can gain some insight, at least statistically, into why street (re)naming is taking the spatial pattern that it is and where street (re)naming will perhaps occur in the future. As I established in the previous chapter, it is generally assumed that MLK street (re)naming is primarily an African-American-led movement, although whites usually play important roles (both in opposition and support). Because Stump focused so intently upon describing the national and regional distribution o f cities that had a (re)named street he also failed to consider the importance of the street’s intra-urban location and the types of streets that were (re)named. As mentioned in the theoretical chapter, (re)naming streets after King is not just a struggle over whether King should be commemorated but, perhaps more importantly, a struggle over which street will be (re)named. As shown in the previous chapter. AfricanAmericans have struggled with whites and among themselves over whether the (re)named street should extend beyond the scale of the black community. The reader perhaps also remembers that some of the harshest opponents to street (re)naming appear to come from business owners who cite, whether legitimately or not, the cost and burden of reprinting business forms, stationary, and advertisements containing the address change. This points to several issues that warrant empirical investigation. What is the racial makeup or composition of the streets (re)named after King? Are they located primarily in African-American parts of the city, as suggested by some newspaper reports, or do they integrate the black and white communities? By measuring such patterns, we can gain a firmer understanding o f the place of MLK streets within the larger urban social geography. Another key issue that cries out for attention involves the commercial/business composition o f streets (re)named after King. Recognizing the


84 apparent opposition lodged against street (re)naming by some business owners, one would assume that streets (re)named after King would be largely residential. Are there any distinctive patterns in the frequency and type of businesses and institutions found on streets (re)named after King? Again, because of Stump's (and traditional toponymy's) neglect of intra-urban locational issues, so far these are largely unanswered questions beyond anecdotal evidence provided by newspapers. The final issue which Stump failed to address was the temporal pattern of MLK street (re)naming. Stump stated that proposals to commemorate King through place naming began almost immediately following his assassination but that the establishment of a national holiday honoring King has increased interest in commemorative place naming. Beside these statements, he provided no systematic look into the temporal or historical evolution of street (re)naming as a geographic and commemorative practice. Such an omission is quite understandable considering the painstaking effort required to collect such data. However, if such data could be collected, we could gain valuable insight into the timing of street (re)naming in relations to the start o f the MLK holiday.

3.3

Data and Methods: Electronic Approaches to Place Name Research Place name research has traditionally relied upon the analysis o f published maps

and charts, what one author has termed “cartotoponymy” (Orth 1984). Previous studies, however, have noted the advantage of exploring other approaches and data sources (McDavid et al. 1985: Berleant-Schiller 1991). Perhaps the most revolutionary change in place name research has come as a result of the emergence of desktop computers and electronic databases. For example, GNIS (Geographic Name Information System), a digital gazetteer of names found on maps produced by the USGS and other federal agencies, has been used in recent toponymic studies and will likely be utilized more in the future with the database now available for on-line searches via the Internet. Using electronic databases in place name research allows for quicker, more flexible, and more


85 comprehensive searches of naming patterns. Because the name records are in digital form, it is quite easy to import search results into a spreadsheet/database program and ultimately into a mapping/geographic visualization software. The possibilities do not end with the GNIS. however. An equally useful, yet largely unexplored, resource for place name research is commercially-produced, electronic phone directories. Phone directories are not new to name research. Reed (1975) and Zelinsky (1980: 1985: 1993). in their seminal work on business naming patterns, utilized phone book listings. However, to date, the benefits of electronic phone directory searches have been largely unrealized. In addition to their reasonable cost, these digital databases are particularly useful because they are constantly being updated. It is in the economic interest of the software company producing these digital databases to make their applications user-friendly and keep the information in phone databases current. The notion of keeping current is especially attractive when we consider that the trend of (re)naming streets after King appears to be relatively recent and. in fact, still evolving. Another key benefit is that many of the new digital phone directories contain much more information than simply addresses and phone numbers. By linking addresses to data from the census and other sources, these databases are increasingly containing information on the types of businesses and residences located along certain streets. For example. American Business Disc. one of the electronic business directories used in this study, provides information on a business’s employment size, sales volume, and yellow page categorization, as well as general address and phone identification. The final advantage to using electronic phone directories is that they allow the researcher to compile a database of addresses and phone numbers that can be used later in conducting surveys. Although not a telephone directory, the Tiger/Census Tract Street Index (Version 2) is another useful digital database in conducting street name research and one that is used in this study. This database, a byproduct of the United States Census


86 Bureau's Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) database, lists streets in the United States and their corresponding census tract or block numbering area (BNA) codes, thus providing a way o f identifying census areas which contain a street name o f interest. As argued in the earlier chapter, it is increasingly necessary for geographers to examine the intra-urban locational context o f place naming patterns, specifically how place names fit into the social and economic structure of the city. While designed more for those in marketing, the Tiger/Census Tract Street Index is an electronic tool o f potential value in contemporary’ toponymic research. The Census/Tiger Tract Street Index and two electronic phone directories/databases, Phone Disc PowerFinder 1996 and American Business Disc, were used in this chapter's analysis. Phone Disc PowerFinder 1996 was used to locate cities with streets (re)named after Martin Luther King, Jr. PhoneDisc PowerFinder 1996 is a six CD-ROM package produced by Digital Directory Assistance. It is available at most retail software stores. The PhoneDisc database, which contains address records for over 115 million businesses and residences, is one of the most comprehensive electronic directories presently on the market. Unlike many of its counterparts on the market, the application allows unlimited searching and exporting o f addresses. Perhaps the only more definitive data source for identifying street name patterns is the ZIP+-1 National File Directory, which is a record of all addresses to which mail is delivered by the U.S. postal service. However, the CD-ROM version of the National File Directory is rather costly and does not come with any software for searching and downloading relevant address records. PhoneDisc Powerfinder, on the other hand, allows the user to conduct searches by: name o f business or resident; business type (either yellow page description or 6 digit SIC); phone number of business or resident; and location of business or resident (by street, city, state, or Zip Code). Because addresses are classified by business or residence, the phone directory can also give an approximate picture of whether (re)named streets are largely residential or commercial. As mentioned in the previous


87 chapter and as developed further in this chapter, the commercial composition of streets is a potentially important issue in political struggles over (re)naming streets after King. American Business Disc, compiled and distributed by American Business Information. Inc.. is a database o f over 10 million businesses, associations, schools, physicians, and government organizations located in the United States. This CD-ROMbased directory allowed the author to search for and download detailed information on the frequency, type, and characteristics of businesses and organizations located on streets (re)named after King. The data contained in American Business Disc are a compilation of yellow pages, printed business directories, and government white pages. Finally, the Tiger/Census Tract Street Index allowed the author to identify census tracts and BNA's that contain a street or portions o f a street (re)named after Martin Luther King, Jr. Using census tract/BNA codes obtained from this database, several socio-economic variables associated with these census areas were located and downloaded in digital form via the US Census Bureau Web site (http://www.census.gov) through its online data access tools. The Census Tract Street Index provides census tract/BNA information for more than 74 million individual residential addresses in 3076 of the 3141 United States counties, representing roughly 70% o f all addresses in the country. Coverage within counties ranges from as poor as 10% to better than 90%. Street address information within the digital index is accurate as of April 1. 1990, which greatly limits our ability to locate and identify the census tracts of more recent street (re)namings.

3.4

Research Questions Several questions will be addressed in the following analysis.

1. What is the current distribution of MLK streets by state? Which state(s) have most or least MLK streets? What regions are under or over-represented in terms o f street (re)naming?


88 2. How does the use of electronic phone directories to locate MLK streets compare to Stump's use of the National Ftve-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory? 3. How does the “Confederate South” as a region fit into the national pattern of MLK street (re)naming? To what extent are southern states distinctive in terms of the occurrence of street (re)naming? 4. How is MLK street (re)naming distributed along the South's urban hierarchy? Is it primarily a large urban phenomenon or is it equally evident in smaller towns/cities? 5. What is the relationship between MLK street (re)naming and relative size of black population in the South's towns and cities? 6. What are the social, economic, and racial characteristics of census areas that contain streets (re)named after King? Are MLK streets located in areas that are largely African-American? How do census areas containing MLK streets compare to their respective cities in terms of income and housing characteristics? 7. What is the business/commercial composition of streets (re)named after King? What are the frequency and types o f businesses and institutions found along these streets? 8. What has been the temporal pattern of MLK street (re)naming among Georgia's cities and towns, particularly in relation to the establishment of a King holiday?

3.5

National Distribution of MLK Street (Re)Naming Using the PhoneDisc Powerfinder database of address records, a nation-wide (50

states) search was conducted for streets (re)named in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Although the directory differentiated between types of streets (e.g. roads, lanes, parkways, boulevards, avenues, drives, and streets), that information was not used in this study. The names attached to streets, as listed in PhoneDisc database, varied. In the majority of cases, street addresses contained King’s full name (Dr. Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Martin Luther King). However, a significant number o f


89 streets were listed as simply having MLK and ML King in their names. All conceivable name scenarios were explored. Ultimately, the phone directory search revealed that 483 towns/cities in the United States had a street (re)named after King. No city or town was found to have more than one street (re)named after King. Specifically. 7285 businesses and 14914 residences were found to be located on such streets. Figure 3.1 shows the general location of these streets. Address records are geocoded to the centroid of each county and one symbol does not necessarily represent only one city/town. As hypothesized, MLK street (re)naming appears to be most prevalent in the southeastern US, particularly in the eastern portion of Texas, along the Mississippi River, along the Gulf region, and in what has been termed the “Black Belt” regions of Georgia. Alabama, and Mississippi. However, there are other noteworthy concentrations in California, the north central states of Michigan, Illinois. Indiana. Ohio, and Kentucky, and the Middle Atlantic states of New Jersey and Maryland. (Re)naming streets after King is evident across the nation with the exceptions o f the New England and West Mountain/Great Plains regions. O f the 50 states: 11 (or 22%) had no (re)named street; 10 (or 20%) had only 1 MLK street, and 8 (or 16%) had 2-4 cities with a street (re)named after King. The remaining 42% of states had five or more MLK streets. However, 324 (or 67%) of the nation’s 483 MLK streets are located in the 6 southern states o f Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama. Georgia and Mississippi lead the country with 72 and 65 MLK streets respectively. Figure 3.2 provides a clearer picture o f the relative frequency of King street (re)naming by relating cities with MLK streets as a percentage of total places. Data on the number of places in each state were obtained from the 1990 U.S. Census. The Census Bureau recognizes two kinds of places, incorporated places and census designated places (CDPs), which are locally recognized settled population centers by name. When displayed in this way, one sees that the five Deep South states of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana are currently the core region of the


One Inch Represents 457 Miles

Source: Compiled by A uthor U sing PhoneDisc 1996

Figure 3.1: Distribution of MLK Streets in the U.S.. 1996


91

9

Percent o f P laces j~

[ 0.1 - 2.7 3.2 - 7.4 1 2 - 13

20 •Places as defined by US Census

One Inch Represents 537 Miles Source: Compiled by A uthor From PhoneDisc 1996

Figure 3.2: Percentage of Places with a Street (re)named after MLK, Jr., 1996


92 phenomenon of (re)naming streets after King. While Georgia has the largest absolute number of places with a (re)named street (72). Mississippi leads the nation with the highest rate of street (re)naming (20% of places). Surprisingly, relative to other Confederate states, street (re)naming has a rather small presence in South Carolina (3.2% of places), Arkansas (1.6% of places), Tennessee (2.1% of places). North Carolina (2.8% of places), and Virginia (1.4% of places). These results suggest a revised understanding of the distribution of street (re)naming. While street (re (naming is heavilypronounced in what can be consider the “Confederate South." the rate of the movement is not strong throughout all of the region.

3.6

PhoneDisc Versus National Five-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory Before going any further with the analysis, it might useful to determine the exact

effectiveness of using the 1996 PhoneDisc electronic phone directory over the National Five-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory for 1996. Georgia, the state with the highest number of MLK streets (72). was used for the purposes of illustration. According to street name information available in the / 996 National Five-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory. 12 cities had a street (re)named after King, meaning that using Stump's methodology some 60 MLK streets would have been missed in any analysis of this (re)naming phenomenon. A similar test was conducted using the remaining states in the Confederate South to gain a clearer picture of the spatial bias of Stump's original data source. These results are presented in Table 3.1. Overall. 286 (or 77%) of the region's 373 MLK streets would have gone unidentified using only the National Zip Code Directory utilized by Stump. Omissions would have been particularly large in Alabama (with 30 missed streets), Mississippi (with 58 missed streets), and Louisiana (with 41 missed streets). Although not large in the absolute number o f missed streets, a large percentage of MLK streets in Arkansas (88%) and


93

Table 3.1: Comparison of MLK Street Searches. PhoneDisc vs. Postal Zip Code Directory

NUMBER OF MLK STREETS

STATE

Found Using PhoneDisc

Found Using Postal

Missed by Zip

CD-ROM

Zip Code Directory

Code Directory (% of total)

AL

35

5

30 (86%)

AR

8

1

7 (88%)

FL

47

24

23 (49%)

GA

72

12

60 (83%)

LA

51

10

41 (80%)

MS

65

7

58 (89%)

NC

17

7

10(59%)

SC

11

1

10(91%)

TN

8

o

5 (63%)

TX

54

24

30 (56%)

VA

5

0

5 (100%)

TOTAL

373

87

286 (77%)


94 South Carolina (91%) would have gone undetected using the National Zip Code Directory. Perhaps the most startling finding is the fact that of the five Virginia streets which PhoneDisc found to be (re)named after King, none were present in the pages of the Zip Code directory. Clearly, such omissions would adversely affect the research's validity and hence our understanding of the occurrence and distribution of commemorative street (re)naming. While the use o f electronic phone directories such as PhoneDisc is not infallible, it is superior to the source used in the past by Stump.

3.7

Regional Variation in MLK Street (Re)naming: Dominance of the South Table 3.2 provides a comparison of regional patterns in commemorative street

(re)naming, analyzing each region's share of MLK streets, residences located on MLK streets, and businesses located on MLK streets. These findings indicate that while (re)naming streets after King is certainly evident across the nation, the South appears to be the core of this commemorative practice. For example, the eleven states of the Confederate South have 373 or 77% of the nation's 483 (re)named streets while claiming only 28% of the US population and 45% of the country’s African-American population. In terms of census-defined regions, the presence of MLK streets is much greater in the South, relative to its population, than in the Northeast, Midwest and West. For instance, the South Atlantic division’s share o f (re)named streets is 15.3 percentage points higher than its share of the country’s total population, but almost proportional to its share of African-Americans. In contrast, the East South Central division's share of MLK streets (25%) is 19 percentage points higher than its share of US population and almost 16 percentage points higher than its share o f African-Americans in the US. MLK street (re)naming is weakest in the New England, West North Central, and West Mountain regional divisions. This finding is a bit surprising when we consider the historically strong liberal Democratic base of New England. On the other hand, each o f these



Table 3.2: Regional Variation in MLK Street (Re)Naming in the U.S., 1996

REGION

PERCENTAGE SHARE OP

M l.K Sueets

Businesses on Ml.K Streets

Residences on MLK Streets

U S Total Population

tl S Black Population

4

5

8

20

19

New England

06

03

2

5

l

Middle Atlantic

3

4

6

15

17

9

18

10

24

19

E. North Central

7

10

7

17

16

W. North Central

2

5

2

7

3

83

66

68

35

51

South Atlantic

33

31

26

18

30

E. South Central

25

7

17

6

10

W. South Central

25

19

21

II

11

4

II

13

22

9

Mountain

08

08

06

6

1

Pacific

3

9

12

16

8

77

49

58

28

45

Northeast

Midwest

South

West

Confederate South

PERCENTAGE SHARE OP

DIVISION

Source: Data on MLK Streets from P honeD isc 1996, Population Data from l lW0 IJS Census

96

regions has 3% or less of the country's black population. If we assume that (re)naming streets after King is primarily an African-American led movement and the relative presence of blacks within the city affects the likelihood of (re)naming a street, then this may explain these regional patterns. However, in other regions with a significant African-American presence, there appears to be a general under-representation of MLK street (re)naming. For example, the Middle Atlantic division's share of MLK streets is 3.1% while its share of US blacks is 17% and its share of the country's total population is 15%. Similarly, the Pacific division has 16% o f the US total population and 8.4% of US black population but only claims 3.3 % of (re)named streets. In addition to variation in the popularity of MLK street (re)naming, these disparities perhaps also reflect the fact that much of the African-American population in these regions, because o f the nature of the Great Migration in the early to mid-20th century (Ernst and Hugg. 1976). are concentrated in a limited number of metropolitan areas, while the African-American population in the South is spread out among many towns and cities of varying size and also more rural areas.

3.8 Residential/Business Context of MLK Street (re): A Closer Look at Southern Dominance Another way of exploring regional variation in the importance of MLK streets is to compare each region's share of businesses and residences located on MLK streets. Such data provide an indication, although very rough, of the composition and relative prominence of streets (re)named after King. The importance of street (re)naming as a geographic and commemorative practice is not limited to the number of streets which are (re)named but also includes the number of people and establishments who have their geographic identity connected with King's memory. When examined in this manner, the South’s position in the geography of street (re)naming does not appear quite as dominant as it did when examining the absolute number o f streets (re)named after King. For


97 example, while the Confederate South can claim 77% of the nation's MLK streets, its share of businesses located on such streets is 49% and its share of residences is 58%. While accounting for 83% of (re)named streets, the census defined South claims only 66% and 68% of residences and businesses located on MLK streets respectively. Moreover, while the six southern states of Georgia. Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama. Florida, and Texas account for 67% of the nation's MLK streets, they claim only 45% of all businesses and 52% of all residences located on streets (re)named after King in the United States. While the East South Central division's share of MLK streets is 25%. its share of businesses located on such streets is only 7%. In contrast, the Pacific division has 9% of the country's businesses and 12% of its residences located on MLK streets while claiming only 3.3% of actual streets. These results indicate that there is not only regional variation in the occurrence of the nation's MLK streets but also variation in the relative share of businesses and residences located on such streets. These patterns perhaps reflect the influence o f city size. Conceivably, street (re)naming outside o f the South could be confined mainly to larger cities which generally have a larger number o f businesses and residences. Moreover, bigger cities likely have longer roads and therefore a higher number o f residences and businesses per road than in smaller places. It is also worth mentioning that larger cities are more likely to be more definitively covered in the electronic phone directory because of the ease of getting directories for such places. Also, largely commercial streets are often interpreted as more prestigious and hence these findings may give an indication of regional variation in the prominence o f streets (re)named after King. Interpreted this way, the rest of the United States may lag behind the South in the absolute number of MLK streets but these streets may have a much more visible and prestigious place in the urban geography outside the South. It is perhaps more difficult, as has been suggested in newspaper accounts and the author's examination of local government records, for southern blacks to (re)name streets with


98 large numbers of businesses and residents. With this in mind, a ratio was calculated between the number o f residences located on MLK streets and the number of businesses located on streets (re)named after King. For the nation as a whole, there are 2.05 times more residences than businesses located on streets (re)named after King. The ratio between residences and businesses is larger in the Confederate South. It has 2.43 times more residences on MLK streets than businesses. Figure 3.3 provides a state by state breakdown of the ratio of residences to businesses. Only 3 of the eleven Confederate southern states have a ratio of residence to business smaller than the national norm. Five of the eleven states have a ratio of residence to business near the same level or smaller than the regional norm. Florida has the lowest ratio with 1.13 more residences located on the state's MLK streets than businesses. Arkansas's ratio is the second smallest, although the state claims only 39 residences and 33 businesses located on MLK streets. MLK streets in Texas are also very commercial in nature with a ratio of 1.74 to 1.00. Georgia and Tennessee have ratios close to the regional norm, although Georgia has far more (re)named streets and businesses and residences located on such streets. Six southern states have ratios of residence to business larger than the regional ratio o f 2.43 to 1.00. South Carolina has the largest with 6.73 times more residences located on MLK streets than businesses. However, South Carolina has only 11 (re)named streets with 74 residences and 11 businesses located on them. MLK streets in Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia are much more residential in nature than the national or regional norm with ratios of 6.25. 5.44. and 5.67 to 1.00 respectively. These states are followed by Louisiana with 4.13 times more residences than businesses and North Carolina with 3.72 times more residences than businesses.


99

ll Hi H Nation Region MLK Streets

"Main" Streets

Source■PhoneDisc 1996

Figure 3.3: Residential and Business Composition of MLK Streets vs. “Main” Streets. 1996


100 In order to provide a way of comparing the character and composition of MLK streets with other city streets. I calculated the ratio of residences to businesses located on“Main”streets in each state, which is also presented in Figure 3.3. “Main” streets, by name, denote streets of central importance. In addition, the notion of a “Main" street is a central fixture in American urban culture and society, where public attention has traditionally been focused in terms of business and/or the residential location of the town's wealthier, elite population. Of course, there are perhaps many cities in which the main street is not literally “Main” Street but a street of some other name. For example, in some cities, main thoroughfares are often named “Broad” Streets. Nevertheless, when compared to the stereotypical American thoroughfare of “Main” Street. MLK streets appear to be much more residential in nature. For example, the ratio of residences to businesses on MLK streets in Alabama. Louisiana, and Mississippi exceed “Main” street ratios of residences to businesses by as much as 3 times. 2 times, and 4 times respectively. The exceptions appear to be Arkansas and Florida, whose ratio of residences to businesses on MLK streets is lower than the ratio for their respective state's “Main” streets. Overall, MLK streets in the Confederate South are 1.8 times more residential than the region's “Main” streets, although there is great variation from state to state. There also appears to be evidence that MLK streets are more similar in composition to “Main” streets in other regions in the United States. Indeed, the residence/business ratio for MLK streets in the entire United States is equal to (and. in fact, slightly lower) than the residence/business ratio for the country's “Main” streets. The similarity (or dissimilarity) of MLK streets to “Main” streets may be an indication of the relative prominence or prestige of these (re)named streets.

3.9

MLK Street (Re)Naming Along the Southern Urban Hierarchy As pointed out earlier in this chapter, Stump did not address, and indeed ignored,

the frequency of (re)named streets in smaller towns/cities. In this study, population data


were collected for every place in the eleven states of the Confederate South. The population makeup of places with a street (re)named after King was compared to the region's overall urban hierarchy. All population data used in this portion of the analysis were downloaded into spreadsheet-ready form using data access tools at the U.S.Census Website (http://www.census.gov). Figure 3.4 compares the percent of the region's MLK streets within certain population ranges to the percent of all places within these same population ranges. The distribution o f street (re)naming by city size appears to disprove Stump's hypothesis that there is largely an absence of MLK street (re)naming within smaller places that would not be included in the Zip Code Directory he consulted. In fact when compared to the overall pattern o f city/town size. MLK street (re)naming appears to be over-represented in every population category except the less than 2.500 people category, which is the smallest population range. Well over sixty percent of the region's cities with a street (re)named after King have populations o f 9.999 and less. The largest share o f MLK streets are found in places with populations ranging from 2.500 to 9,999. In fact, the median population size of places with a street (re)named after King is 4,909 for Alabama, 5,595 for Georgia, 5,526 for Louisiana, and 4.570 for Mississippi. The majority, if not almost all, of the cities/towns o f this size do not have information on street names available in the National Five Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory. Consequently, it was incorrect for Stump to assume that street (re)naming does not take place at the lower end of the urban hierarchy, at least in the context of the South. While MLK streets are clearly under represented in the lowest population size range, this should not negate the fact that 20% of all places with an MLK street had populations of less than 2,500. The fact that King street (re)naming is under represented in towns with less than 2,500 in population may be the result of several factors ranging from the low level of political/social power of African-Americans at this spatial scale to the fact that such places, because of their small size, lack a large enough base of roads



100,000 +

4) N

I

40,000 - 99,999

(/}

c 20,000 - 39,999

J

O ‘■ P

5 1 0 , 0 0 0 - 19,999

■

a o

2,500 - 9,999 < 2,500

s T 10

% of All Places

20

T 30

40

50

60

70

|__ | % of Places with MLK Street Source: US Census

Figure 3.4: D istribution o f M l.K Street (Re)N um ing in the South by City Size

o IJ

103 from which to (re)name. By the same token, however, the large proportion of MLK streets in places with less than 10.000 people should not lessen the importance of this toponymic trend at the upper end of the urban hierarchy. For example, street (re)naming has occurred in 48% of places in the South with a population of 100.000 and larger and in almost one-third of places with populations between 40.000 and 99.999. In contrast. MLK street (re)naming has occurred only in 10% of places with a population between 2.500 and 9.999. although this city size accounts for more than 40% o f all MLK streets. Similarly, street (re)naming is occurring in only 13% of places with 10.000-19.999 people and 11% of places with 20.000 - 39.999 people. In order to formally verify- the effect o f population size, a Chi-square contingency test [p=0.95. df=5] was conducted comparing the observed and expected frequency of MLK streets by city size groups outlined in Figure 3.4. The test resulted in X2 = 29.9 and the conclusion that the frequency of (re)naming streets after King was not statistically independent of the size of place. In summary, while MLK street (re)naming is well represented in larger cities, this toponymic practice is not limited to these areas but is. in fact, a significant part of the cultural landscapes of the non-metropolitan South.

3.10

MLK Street (Re)Naming and Relative Size of African-American Population To more fully explore the racial context of MLK street (re)naming. the frequency

of street (re)naming (places with an MLK street as percentage of total places) for each US state was correlated with the size of its African-American population (as percentage of total population), yielding a strong correlation coefficient of 0.76 (significant at 0.05 level). In order to understand the relationship between street (re)naming and the relative size of a city's black population, data were collected on the racial composition of places in the South with an MLK street. Apparently, there is a strong relationship between street (re)naming and the relative size of a city's African-American population. The population of the average town/city in the South is almost 18% black. For places with


an MLK street, the African-American population, on average, constitutes about 39% of the local population. Figure 3.5 examines more closely MLK street (re)naming as it is distributed among towns with similar racial composition. The proportion of the population which is black in cities with a street (re)named after King was compared to the racial distribution of all of the region's cities/towns. There appears to be an abundance of street (re)naming in all places except where African-Americans are less than 10% o f the total population. Not surprisingly. King street (re)naming is very weak, but not non-existent, in places in which less than 1% of the population is black. More than 65% of MLK street (re)naming is taking place in cities where 10 to 49.9% of the population is classified by the census as black. When compared to the relative size of the black population in all places. MLK street (re)naming appears to be most over represented in places where the African-American population is at least 30% of the total population. In order to formally verify the effect of a city's relative size of black population, a Chi-square contingency test [p=0.95. df=5] was conducted comparing the observed and expected frequency of MLK streets by African-American size groups outlined in Figure 3.5. The test resulted in X2 = 25.6 and the conclusion that (re)naming streets after King was not statistically independent of the relative size of a city's AfricanAmerican population (measured as a proportion of total). While there is greater probability of a street being (re)named after King in a city where African-Americans represent a significant percentage o f the total population, this is not to suggest that a place with a sizable black population always has an MLK street. For instance, while contributing more than one-third (32%) of streets (re)named after King, street (re)naming has occurred in only 9% of southern places where blacks are 10 to 29.9% of the total population. Similarly, 56% of MLK streets are found in cities where African-Americans represent 30 to 74.9 % of the population, but only 17% of these places have such streets. This is not to suggest that King is not commemorated in some other manner within the region (e.g. by having schools, local monuments, and

with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without p e n ^ i ^


60 (/>

0) o (D

50

cl 40 30

c

.j

0.14

Bulloch Beltway Bulloch Bypass

j

0.14

Magnolia Way

j

0.14

Memorial Scenic Parkway

j

0.14

Perimeter Parkway

j

0.14 0.14

Statesboro Perimeter Road Westside Bypass

j

0.14

Archibald Bulloch Perimeter

2

0.09

Dale Lick

2

0.09

Dogwood Trail

2

0.09

Memorial Parkway

2

0.09

Statesboro Beltway

2

0.09

University Parkway

2

0.09


145 Scenic Parkway, and Memorial Parkway. However, unlike the names Veterans Memorial and Martin Luther King, these suggestions did not memorialize anything in particular (Statesboro Herald. June 6, 1994, pp. 1 & 8). What is perhaps most striking about these results is the relative weak support for naming the perimeter for King. While African-Americans account for over 25 percent of the county's population. MLK accounted for only 4 percent of submitted suggestions. One possible reason for the low number is the manner in which the suggestion campaign was advertised. From all indications, the call for road name suggestions was announced only a few times in the local newspaper. In 1995. a Gallup Poll found that non-whites, southerners, and lower income populations perceived the newspaper as a less important source of information than other social groups (Moore 1995: 8). And. of course, it is quite possible that many African-Americans read a different paper than the local Statesboro one. Rather than showing the weak support for King, these results perhaps show the strong support for memorializing veterans. In fact, many of these suggestions for “Veterans Memorial” were submitted as form letters, serving as signs of mass support or at least more organized support. After the June 1 deadline for the submission of suggestions, the naming committee members reduced the 100 suggested road names down to five after committee members wrote down their first and second choices on slips of paper. These suggestions were placed on a line ballot and members then ranked them one through five in order of preference. The names with the two lowest totaled rankings were then the recommendations submitted to the city and county governments for a vote. The highest ranking suggestion for naming the perimeter highway was Bulloch Memorial Parkway (11 points) followed by Veterans Memorial Parkway (12 points), University Parkway (17 points), and Bulloch Heritage Parkway (17 points). The suggestion to name the perimeter after Martin Luther King was the least preferred o f the five with 18 points. Preference for Memorial Parkway, University Parkway, and Bulloch Heritage Parkway


146

perhaps reflected attempts to side step the controversial decision of choosing either a memorial to veterans or King. Indeed, in the case of white County Commissioner Bird Hodges, who was a member of the perimeter naming committee, his rationale for supporting the name Bulloch Heritage Parkway was that this appellation would serve a “memorial umbrella” for ail causes and heroes without elevating one over the other (Minutes o f the Bulloch County Board o f Commissioners. June 21.1994). Despite the numerical results of the original mail-in suggestion campaign, the joint naming committee chose Bulloch Memorial and Veterans Memorial Parkway as the two recommendations that would be submitted to the Statesboro City Council and the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners (Statesboro Herald. June 21. 1994. pp. 1 & 3). However, attempts to name the perimeter after King did not end. Naming the perimeter ran into controversy when the city council voted for the name “Veterans Memorial” while the county agreed on “Bulloch Memorial Parkway.” At the meetings of the Statesboro city council and Bulloch County Board o f Commissioners on June 21. 1994, representatives of the local NAACP chapter voiced last minute support for naming the perimeter for King, suggesting that the west and east sides of the road be given two separate names. [Incidentally, the west side of the perimeter is predominantly AfricanAmerican while the east is not.] Ray Hendrix of the American Legion was also at that meeting and opposed such a proposal. The suggestion for a two-name split with one of those names being devoted to King was also supported and submitted by AfricanAmerican Commissioners Anthony Simmons and Councilman David Shumake in the meeting o f their respective governing bodies (Statesboro Herald, June 22, 1994. pp. 1 & 8). Ironically, black commissioner Gordon Alston made the motion and voted to name the perimeter “Bulloch Memorial Parkway." Commissioner Simmons voted against this motion while Councilman Shumake abstained in the city’s otherwise unanimous Veterans Memorial Parkway vote (Minutes o f the Bulloch County Board o f Commissioners, June 21, 1994). In rejecting these last-ditch efforts to give the perimeter


147 two names, this first attempt to honor King through street (re)naming ended unsuccessfully. Ultimately, the perimeter was named “Veterans Memorial Parkway" after one final maneuver by the County Commission's African-American members. When the County Commission attempted to change its name choice from Bulloch Memorial to Veterans Memorial in order to be in line with the city's vote. Commissioner Alston evoked the county's ordinance that requires 80 percent of property owners to approve a road name change. Suggesting that the perimeter had already been officially named. Alston attempted to manipulate an ordinance that had previously been used to thwart African-American attempts to change the name Kennedy Bridge Road to New Hope Road. Despite these efforts, the motion to name the perimeter “Veterans Memorial Parkway” passed with the black commissioners voting against the motion (Minutes o f the Bulloch County Board o f Commissioners, July 5, 1994).

4.3.4

MLK Street (Re)Naming: Attempt Two On January 22. 1997. Reverend Early Humphries and several other African-

American citizens made a formal request to the Statesboro city council that a street be renamed in memory o f Martin Luther King, Jr. Humphries was chairman of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and leader in the New Hope Road controversy discussed earlier. Humphries and the ministerial alliance offered three possible streets for renaming: Bulloch, Johnson, or Blitch (Minutes o f Regular Meeting o f Mayor and City Council, January 22, 1997, p. 5). Evident in Humphries request was the idea that Statesboro was lagging behind other communities in the movement to commemorate King. Indeed, the pastor was quoted by the local newspaper as saying: “We have sat quietly for several years as we watched this action (street naming) being taken by nearby communities” (Statesboro Herald, January 23,1997, p. 1). As he indicated in an interview with this author (Humphries 1997), he was referring to the fact that streets had


148 already been (re)named after King in Savannah. Georgia (in 1990) and the smaller neighboring town of Metter. Georgia (in 1996). After hearing the Ministerial Alliance's request, the City Council and Mayor Hal Averitt decided to appoint a committee to study the issue (Minutes o f Regular Meeting o f Mayor and City Council o f Statesboro. Georgia. January 22. 1997. p. 5). On February 10. 1997. this committee met with African-American community leaders from the Ministerial Alliance and the NAACP. At this meeting, the black leadership changed its request from renaming Bulloch. Blitch. or Johnson to renaming Northside Drive after King (Statesboro Herald. February 19. 1997. pp. 1 & 13). Northside Drive is part of US highway 80 and represents one of the longest roads and busiest commercial arteries, passing by the city's mall and over 170 businesses. While the shift in choice of street was not discussed or analyzed in any newspaper accounts, interviews with leaders in the African-American community indicated that Donnie Simmons, leader the local NAACP chapter, had met with the Ministerial Alliance and persuaded the group to join with the NAACP in requesting that Northside Drive be renamed in King's memory (Humphries 1997: Moseley 1997: Simmons 1997). While many reasons were given, the general logic was that King's name should be attached to a prominent street (such as Northside) rather than smaller streets confined to predominantly black neighborhoods (such as Bulloch. Blitch. and Johnson). Table 4.3 provides a comparison of characteristics of those streets which had been suggested as possible candidates to be renamed after King. As shown. Bulloch and Johnson streets are largely residential. Bulloch Street’s sole nonresidential establishment is the Tabernacle Baptist Church while Johnson claims only six. rather small, businesses. Bulloch is the smallest of the proposed streets, being onehalf a mile long. Johnson, while longer, is positioned deeper into the city’s AfricanAmerican com m u n ity and lower-income areas. Blitch Street, while commercial and longer, is composed almost entirely of black-owned businesses. In contrast. Northside Drive is almost 5 miles in length and largely commercial.


149

Table 4.3: Characteristics of Streets Suggested to be Renamed After Martin Luther King. Jr.. Bulloch County. Georgia

Street

No. of Businesses

No. of Residences

Length (miles)

Bulloch

1

18

0.5

Blitch

11

4

0.8

Johnson

6

27

0.7

4.5 25 175 Source: Data co lected bv author from visual observation and search of Phone Disc 1996 Northside


150 The proposal to rename Northside Drive after King drew heavy opposition from business owners located along the potentially affected street. In fact, a group of business owners organized and signed a petition opposing the street name change. As has been the case in other cities, affected businesses cited the cost o f changing addresses on stationary', labels, advertising, and billing. For instance, one o f the chief street (re)naming opponents, the owner o f a barbeque restaurant, pointed out that he had just ordered 15.000 advertising brochures to be mailed across the state to convention and business bureaux. He stated: “if the name change is passed all that effort will go to waste” (Statesboro Herald, February 27, 1997, p. 1 & 9). Prompted by this controversy, and anticipating future street (re)naming struggles, the city council organized a committee to develop guidelines for renaming a street. The five-person committee consisted of two African-Americans, city planner Joe Moseley, and city councilman David Shumake (,Statesboro Herald. April 1. 1997, pp. 1 & 3). In mid-May of 1997, the city council unanimously passed an ordinance containing the committee’s recommendations (Minutes o f Regular Meeting o f Mayor and City Council, May 17, 1997). The resulting ordinance required 75 percent o f property owners on a street to sign off on any plan to rename that street. If the street contains fewer than ten parcels of property, petitioners for the street name change must obtain signatures from all property owners or their representatives. The ordinance also called for the petitioners for the street name change to pay for 50 percent of the total cost (labor and materials) o f the street renaming process, such as the posting of new street signs. According to the Statesboro’s city planner, renaming Northside Drive would cost a petitioner between $7,000-$8.000. From all indications, this ordinance has sabotaged the ability of African-Americans to get a large, prominent street renamed, particularly when we consider the high cost of renaming and the level o f public consensus needed. It is quite likely that this measure will have the locational impact of encouraging the renaming of a largely residential and African-American street. To date, however, the African-American leadership in


151 Statesboro has refused to consider (re)naming any other street other than Northside. Statesboro's street (re)naming ordinance typifies the unwillingness of the local government officials, particularly white officials, to make potentially unpopular political decisions. These were the sentiments expressed in an editorial written in reaction to the city council’s decision: Council members deny that the MLK dispute was the reason for the new law. They said they simply needed to establish guidelines. However, the effect is to alienate and anger those who wanted to rename the road. Rather than unnecessarily inflame heated emotions, the City Council should have resolved the MLK dispute one way or the other before passing the ordinance. No matter the outcome of the "street fight." some feelings would have been hurt. But at least it would have had the appearance of a fair fight. Instead, the council looks like it stacked the deck against supporters of this change (Savannah Morning News. May 22. 1997, p. 1). Another tension underlying this ordinance was the role of African-American city councilman David Shumake in designing and voting for this measure despite opposition from the leader of the local NAACP and its apparent de-railing of the street (re)naming initiative. In this respect, this ordinance also exposes differences within the AfricanAmerican leadership over how MLK street (re)naming should be carried out and integrated into the legal construction of urban public space.

4.4

Eatonton-Putnam County Case Study

4.4.1

Background on Eatonton and Putnam County Eatonton is located in Middle Georgia, specifically Putnam County (Figure 4.2).

It is approximately 34 miles northeast o f Macon, 20 miles northwest o f Milledgeville, and 52 miles south of Athens. In 1990, Eatonton had a population o f 4,737. a two percent decline from its 1980 population o f 4,833 (Table 4.3). African-Americans comprised almost 59% of the town’s 1990 population, an increase from 1980 when blacks comprised 55% of the population. From 1980 to 1990, the white population in Eatonton decreased by almost 10% while the town’s black population


152

S o u th C a r o lin a

• Eatonton

Figure 4.2: Location o f Eatonton-Putnam County. Georgia


153

Table 4.4: Population Characteristics of Eatonton-Putnam County. Georgia

Population of Eatonton

Year

Total

White

Black

Population of Putnam County Total

White

Black

1980

4.833

2.124

2.667

10.295

5.994

4.272

1990

4.737

1.916

2.776

14.137

9.300

4.748

% Change

-2.0

-9.8

4.1

37.3

55.2

11.1

Source: LrS Census


154 increased by 4%. In contrast, the larger Putnam County is 39% black and saw. between 1980 and 1990. a 55% increase in its white population and a 37% increase in its total population. While the county's growth rate in total and for whites far outpaced the city of Eatonton. the county's increase in black population of 11% was close to the city level of almost 10%. Much of the population increase in Putnam County can be explained by economic and residential development taking place along the neighboring Lakes of Oconee and Sinclair, which have seen a dramatic in-migration of higher-income white retirees and Atlanta professionals. As was the case with Statesboro. African-American representation in Eatonton's local government has come relatively recently and has been facilitated by redistricting changes in the city and county as ordered by the courts. For instance, in 1982 a discrimination law suit resulted in the redistricting of Putnam County into 4 voting wards and the conversion o f the County Commission from a three-person board with the chairman and two representatives elected ”at large” to a five-person body in which a representative was elected from each ward and the chairman is the only official elected “at large.” Following these electoral changes, in 1983 Putnam County elected its first two African-American County Commissioners: Jimmy Davis and George W. Thompkins (.Eatonton Messenger, April 15, 1982, p. 1; Eatonton Messenger, January 6, 1983, p. 1). In 1977, George Williams and Robert Thompkins had become Eatonton’s first AfricanAmerican city council members, winning two of four new voting wards that had been created earlier that year (Eatonton Messenger, March 10, 1977, p. 1; Eatonton Messenger, August 4, 1977, p. 1; Eatonton Messenger, August 18, 1997. p. 1). While the establishment o f these four wards allowed African-Americans a greater voice in city elections, they were still displeased with the fact that the mayor and three city council members were elected “at large” by the entire city voter population (Rice 1997). Consequently, a class action discrimination suit filed against the city in the mid-1970’s continued. The suit remained active until 1982 when US District Court judge Wilbur


155 Owens ordered that Eatonton's city government could only elect one council member “at large” and that the other two council members must be elected from new combined voting wards. The voting wards were combined largely along the lines o f race. AfricanAmerican Ulysses Rice won one of these newly combined wards and became the city's third African-American city council member (Eatonton Messenger. June 3. 1982. pp. 1 & 10). As a city councilman and former schoolmate of King. Rice played a leading role in bringing the commemoration of King to the “official" attention of the city, locating King's commemoration within the city's social and symbolic geography, and contesting alternative visions from other African-Americans over how and where to memorialize King in Eatonton. While not formally elected until 1983. Rice had served on the city council since 1975. first as a “liaison representative” for the black community and later as a personal advisor to the Mayor. When African-American representatives Williams and Thompkins were elected to the city council in 1977. white representatives complained that Rice’s liaison position was no longer necessary and asked that he be removed. After the liaison position was eliminated. Rice was made the personal advisor to James Marshall, the city’s white mayor, a very close friend of Rice, and a solid supporter of the AfricanAmerican community (Rice 1997; Rice 1998). The relationship between Marshall, Rice, and the black community would later take on greater significance as the city council considered whether to name the city’s new bypass for Marshall or Martin Luther King. Ultimately, the bypass was named for Marshall without opposition and, in fact, with support from Rice and other members of the African-American community. As will be suggested later, this situation reveals the sometimes overlapping interests and identities o f participants involved in MLK street (re)naming. One of the greatest disadvantages faced in conducting the Eatonton case study was the lack of historical background available on the town, particularly the role of African-Americans in its history. For instance, a history of the city and county has never


156 been published. According to Ulysses Rice (1997). there are plans to publish such a history in the future with him writing what he described as the “black history" of the area and someone else writing the “white history.” Rice's division of history into black and white parts perhaps reflects what Rhea (1997) has described as America's "segregation of memory.'' According to Rhea (1997: 96), this segregation of memory accompanied the physical separation of the races and involves blacks holding "on to memories of past injustices and triumphs, while whites embraced a vision which flattered whites, partly by excluding consideration o f the black experience.” Although not addressed by Rhea, the continued separation of whites and blacks into separate spatial communities plays an important role in upholding this segregation of memory and alternate memories of segregation. As will be illustrated later in the dissertation, the idea o f Eatonton's collective memory being a terrain segregated by race will take on even greater importance as African-Americans struggle amongst themselves over whether to confine geographically King's commemoration within the black community or reconstruct it beyond this scale in such a way as to make it a part of the lives of Eatonton's whites. While Eatonton is a smaller city than is Statesboro, it holds a prominent place in the region's literary tradition. As stated on signs greeting those driving into town, Eatonton is the birthplace of authors Joel Chandler Harris and Alice Walker. Nationally, these writers have made important contributions to the cultural representation and depiction of black culture and history in the South. Locally, each author’s legacy has had a hand in shaping the town’s symbolic landscape. Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) is best known for writing the Uncle Remus Tales, which were first published in the Atlanta Constitution in 1876 while he served as associate editor. Through his writings, Harris introduced the public to the “trickster” folktales and fables o f plantation blacks while also attempting to imitate the diction and dialect o f the period’s African-Americans. Uncle Remus, the elderly black narrator of these tales, embodied the docility and humorous innocence o f the Sambo stereotype. Uncle Remus took on even greater


157 popularity and cultural power when it was adapted by Walt Disney into an animated film titled Song o f the South (Kesterson 1989). The legacy o f Harris and Uncle Remus has been repeatedly inscribed into the text of Eatonton's cultural landscape. Standing in the courthouse square is an iron statue of Brer Rabbit. Harris's protagonist or trickster in the Uncle Remus tales. Eatonton's annual dairy festival sponsors a “Tar Baby” run. The town promotes and supports an Uncle Remus Museum, which is housed inside a slave cabin relocated from the Tumwold Plantation where Harris apprenticed as a printer and publisher. While the town is dotted with signs promoting the museum, the most striking advertisement and monument to Uncle Remus is a wall size Disney-style mural (Figure 4.3) on Jefferson Avenue, one of the town's major thoroughfares. Putnam and its surrounding counties are serviced by an Uncle Remus Realty and an Uncle Remus Regional Library. Whether for profit or sincere homage, several of the streets of Eatonton and Putnam County have their identities linked to Joel Chandler Harris such as Brer Bear Road. Brer Fox Road. Brer Rabbit Road. Briar Patch Road. Rabbit Skip Road. Uncle Remus Court, and Uncle Remus Shores. It is also worth noting that Putnam County's Uncle Remus motif greatly complements the larger ”01d South” commemorative theme in Putnam County and its surrounding Middle Georgia area. For instance, in Madison. Georgia, which is approximately 20 miles from Eatonton. a promotional pamphlet (Figure 4.4) openly invites visitors to associate the city with plantation life depicted in Gone With the Wind when it reads: "Frankly My Dear. I'd Rather Go to Madison.” In March of 1997. the neighboring town of Greensboro (Greene County), Georgia, which is approximately 25 miles from Eatonton. hosted a large Civil War re-enactment. The re-enactment was widely attended by people from Putnam and surrounding counties. Participants dressed in costumes of the period, sold Confederate flags and other memorabilia, and witnessed the theatrical surrender of the city to Union troops by the mayor. Although temporarily.


Figure 4.3: Uncle Remus Mural on Jefferson Avenue, Eatonton, Georgia


F ranld ij, mij dcap

I'd ra th e r go to M ad iso n ! adiscn, Q g o fq ia 'f Antebellum iI h h q iw , a located Ixlw cai the metropolitan a re a s c f A llan la, A lliens, M aco n a n ti A u q u tla . T h e city escaped widespread destruction during U n io n G e n eral W illiam T . S h «rm an's infamous m a rd i to the sea, and is now an internationally renow ned destination (o r history, yardcninq, architecture and antique bufh. It's abundance of Antebelkira a n d V ictorian homes an d churches, plus a vigorous, historic and taiicfullij restored downtown retail a re a , appeals to visitors from n e a r and for. S o u th ern history and hospitality owoit you a t evert) step.

M

Figure 4.4: Promotional Pamphlet for Madison, Georgia


160 much of the town's landscape became an active and powerful place of memory where people engaged in the production and consumption of historical representation. O f course, like any place o f memory. Greensboro's Civil War re-enactment (and hence the larger political meaning of this commemoration) is open to a number of different meanings and constructions. As one may expect, the re-enactment was not heavilyattended by the area's African-American population. During my observation of the re enactment. I witnessed an event which keenly captured how commemoration and historical representation of the Civil War is open to multiple and competing perspectives. During the re-enactment, a battle was staged in a field across the street from a low-income. largely African-American part of Greensboro called “Milltown." While formal, paying participants observed the firing o f cannons and the marching of troops from one side of the field, a large group of non-paying African-Americans viewed the simulation from their homes on the other side. When Confederate forces were being driven back during the re-enactment this group of blacks cheered while the other side remained silent. This situation illustrates how the historical interests of AfricanAmericans are often ignored, if not excluded, when the region's past is commemorated. Indeed, after the success and popularity of this event, the city of Greensboro decided to hold the Civil War re-enactment on an annual basis, despite some expressions of concern from African-American leaders. However, prevailing representations of history do not go unchallenged, as evidenced by the actions o f on-looking African-Americans. As with the black onlookers of the Civil War re-enactment. African-Americans in Putnam county have challenged prevailing visions o f the past. One of the most famous of these challengers was black novelist Alice Walker. In an essay entitled “Uncle Remus, No Friend of Mine,” she recounted (Walker 1981: 29-31) her memories and feelings of living in Eatonton under the influence o f Joel Chandler Harris’s


161 representation of southern black life and the consequences of these representations for how she saw her own heritage: There was...until a few years ago. an Uncle Remus restaurant. There used to be a dummy of a black man. an elderly, kindly, cottony-haired darkie. seated in a rocking chair in the restaurant window. In fantasy. I frequently liberated him using army tanks and guns. Blacks, of course, were not allowed in this restaurant....Joel Chandler Harris and I were raised in the same town, although nearly 100 years apart. As far as I'm concerned, he stole a good part of my heritage. How did he steal it? By making me feel ashamed of it. In creating Uncle Remus, he placed an effective barrier between me and the stories that meant to so much to me. the stories that could have meant so much to all of our children, the stories that they would have heard from us and not from Walt Disney. Through Walker’s poignant words we gain insight into how Uncle Remus, as a symbolic construction, was open to conflicting interpretations, to the extent of causing alienation rather than identification among African Americans. Also evident in Walker’s words is the desire of Eatonton blacks to have a more active role in publicly representing their own culture and history. It is perhaps this desire to take control of the reins of representation that fueled Walker’s own desire to write, and the larger black community's desire to rename a street after King. Alice Walker (bom 1944) would go on to construct a rather different image of rural black life in her book The Color Purple. which met with great success, winning an American Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1983. The struggles of southern black women in early 20th century Georgia was the focus of Walker’s work. Like Harris's Uncle Remus. Walker’s work became even more popular when it was adapted into a film. The film was co-produced by Quincy Jones and Steven Spielberg. While Harris’s tales were narrated by an elderly black man and dealt with black struggle in very sublime metaphorical terms, Walker’s protagonist (Celie) and central characters were women. While not fully depicted in the film, her book dealt directly with issues of violence, abuse, and sexuality (Gaffney 1989). In recognition of Walker’s achievements, the State of Georgia proclaimed January 18, 1986 “The Color Purple Day” and Putnam


162 County declared January 13-18. 1986 as “Alice Walker Week’’ (Eatonton Messenger. January 16. 1986. p. 13). Walker returned to Eatonton for the celebration and residents of the town were allowed free admission to two screenings o f the recently premiered movie. The theater that had once relegated Walker and other blacks to the balcony now literally rolled out the red carpet. Almost every store window displayed the color purple in tribute. Donations were taken during the festivities for “The Color Purple Scholarship Fund” (Eatonton Messenger. January 16. 1986. p. I; Eatonton Messenger. February 6. 1986. p. 15). In addition to local, state, and national press, the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) covered Eatonton and its premier o f “The Color Purple" for a documentary. The festivities for Walker captured so much o f the attention of the public and press that it overshadowed the first observance of the MLK federal holiday on January 20. The only mention of the King holiday in the local newspaper was an article describing how the BBC production unit sent to cover Alice Walker was also being allowed to film an MLK Memorial program held at St. John A.M.E. Church (Eatonton Messenger. January 23. 1986. pp. 1&15). As will be established in the next section, the honoring of Walker provides insight into the politics that would later surround the commemoration of King.

4.4.2

Naming of Alice Walker Drive Perhaps the most permanent, yet least publicized, imprint of Walker in Eatonton

was the renaming of a street after her. On June 7. 1985, over seven months before “The Color Purple Day,” Eatonton’s city council voted that Well Street be renamed Alice Walker Drive (Eatonton City Council Minutes, June 7, 1985). Well Street was largely residential with m ost if not all, of its residents being African-American. While certainly not a major thoroughfare in the conventional sense, Well Street was seen as an appropriate symbolic location to honor Walker. Ulysses Rice, who led the street renaming efforts, stated that Well Street was chosen because Butler-Baker Grammar


163

School is located along this road (Rice 1997). Butler-Baker. which Walker attended, was the high school for African-Americans during segregation. Because of Walker's writing, the theme of education and rising above one's social position through education is intimately tied to her legacy in Eatonton. Indeed, Walker herself acknowledged the influential role of her teachers when she mentioned Mrs. Birda Simmons in a poem published in Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems. Mrs. Simmons was Walker's first grade teacher. Later, another important symbolic feature of Alice Walker Drive would be that it runs parallel to Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, although King's road was not renamed until 1990. While there is no direct evidence to suggest that the ultimate location of Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive was influenced by its close proximity to Alice Walker Drive, both streets work together to create a spatial network of African-American memory, connecting a local black figure with a national one (Figure 4.5). The renaming of a street after Alice Walker is important to our discussion here for several reasons. First, it gives insight into the symbolic importance that blacks in Eatonton attach to place naming as a way of publicly recognizing the accomplishments and achievements of African-Americans. Even before the commemoration of King became a public issue, African-Americans were thinking about and using street names as a conduit of cultural expression. The suggestion to rename Well after Walker came from the Putnam County chapter o f the NAACP, which would later request and campaign to have a street (re)named after King (Rice 1998). Alice Walker Drive — like Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive — represented a significant revision of the traditional Eatonton cultural landscape and the primacy of the Uncle Remus symbology. A second important factor arising from the Walker street renaming was the existence of competing interpretations and visions o f where Walker should be honored. As Rice pointed out, Walker herself was not pleased with the renaming o f Well Street. She supposedly preferred the renaming of a road in rural Putnam County, where she was bom and raised (Rice 1997). Perhaps more important, however, was the opposition lodged by Fannie


164

W ell Street Renamed A lice W alker D rive (1 9 8 5 )

xv / /s. V Q 1008 QaoSystorm Globa Go

Concord A venue Renam ed Martin Luther K ing, Jr. D rive (1990)

Figure 4.5: Location of Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and Alice Walker Drive. Eatonton. Georgia


165 Pearle Farley, a prominent female African-American leader in Eatonton. who suggested that honoring Walker should not be confined to a black area o f town (Farley 1997). Later, she would raise this same argument when other members of the African-American community such as Rice planned to commemorate King on a largely black residential street. This competition evident between Rice and Farley would later become more clearly drawn and greatly influence the politics of commemorating King through street (re)naming.

4.4.3

MLK Street (Re)Naming: Attempt One The idea of (re)naming a street in memory of Martin Luther King made its formal

appearance during a September 4. 1990 Eatonton city council meeting when Councilman Rice, then vice-chairman of the local chapter of the NAACP. discussed the prospect of renaming Concord Avenue (Eatonton City Council Minutes. September 4. 1990). Concord was a main residential artery in the African-American community as well as the location of an elementary school, a funeral home owned by Rice, an American Legion post, and the Ebeneezer Baptist Church. In January of the previous year, the road had taken on great symbolic importance as part of the route for a “Freedom March" held on the Martin Luther King holiday. Participants in the march assembled at the Ebeneezer Baptist Church, marched to the county courthouse, and then returned to the church on Concord Avenue for a three hour memorial service in which a pastor re-enacted King's "I Have a Dream" speech (The Eatonton Messenger, January 19. 1989. p. 1). To mobilize support behind the renaming of Concord after King, Rice and other members of the NAACP distributed a questionnaire by hand to residents along the street asking if they were in favor of the name change. The results o f this questionnaire, which were almost unanimously in support, were later submitted to the city council as part of furthering the request to rename Concord for King (Eatonton City Council Minutes. October 7. 1990). A month later, on November 7, 1990, the city council officially


changed the name of Concord Avenue to Martin Luther King. Jr. Drive (Eatonton City Council Minutes, November 7. 1990). While the street (re)naming progressed rather quickly, it did not go unchallenged. The primary opponents to renaming Concord after King were not local white citizens or other city council members but came from within the African-American community. For instance, on October 15. 1990. Fannie Pearie Farley —then vice-president of the American Legion Auxiliary— and several other American Legion Auxiliary representatives formally requested that King's name not be attached to Concord but to a more prominent road (Eatonton City Council Minutes. October 15, 1990). Farley offered two alternatives: (1) Jefferson Street, the town's major thoroughfare, which was quickly dismissed because of the unlikelihood of gaining the support of the street's white population: and (2) the city's new Highway 441 bypass. As reported by Gary Jones of the Eatonton Messenger, Farley made the argument that naming the bypass would be an important symbolic statement and that naming a new road would avoid some of the political controversy she expected may result from renaming a street. In responding to Farley's request white city councilman Bill Hailey. Jr. stated that he had hoped to name the bypass after Mayor James Marshall, a suggestion that Farley did not oppose publicly (Eatonton Messenger, October 18. 1990. p. 1). As the reader may remember. Marshall had a rather supportive relationship with Farley and the rest of the black community. Unlike the Statesboro case in which government officials refused to name a street after someone still living, Eatonton was proposing to honor then acting Mayor with a street name. Over two months later, the city council officially sent a request to the state legislature that the bypass indeed be named after Marshall, a measure that passed easily under the leadership of State Senator Culver Kidd (Eatonton Messenger, March 21, 1991, pp. 1 & 13). Incidentally, a portion of highway 441 from Madison to Dublin had been named after Kidd the year before the Marshall road naming. While unsuccessful. Farley’s challenge was significant in that it signaled a division within the African-American community, or at least its


167

representatives, over how and where to commemorate King through street (re)naming. It also signaled a different geographical strategy, changing the focus from an existing street to a new one. Like Ulysses Rice. Fannie Pearle Farley is a prominent leader in the Putnam County African-American community. In 1981 she was voted one of the ten most influential women in Middle Georgia by the Macon NAACP. Farley is a frequent and active visitor to City Council meetings, being heavily involved in the town's commemorative issues. For instance, in 1986 she and the American Legion Auxiliary were responsible for erecting a monument on the courthouse lawn to honor all veterans (.Eatonton Messenger. January 2, 1986. pp. 1 & 6). In 1989. Farley and her coalition presented the city a portrait of Mayor James Marshall to be hung in city hall in honor of his dedicated service (Eatonton City Council Minutes. January 3, 1989). As pointed out earlier, the positive relationship between Farley and Marshall would play a role in the MLK street (re)naming issue. In 1990. not long before the emergence of the MLK street (re)naming issue. Farley presented the city with a flag that had been flown over the US Capitol (Eatonton City Council Minutes. March 6, 1990). Because of Fannie Pearl Farley’s previous leadership in commemorative issues, she felt compelled and justified to approach the city council for the purpose of expressing an alternative vision of commemorating King through street (re)naming.

4.4.5

MLK Street (Re)Naming: Attempt Two The issue o f (re)naming a street after King arose again in March of 1991 when

the city council passed a motion renaming South Maple Drive to Martin Luther King Circle. South Maple Drive is a rather small side road that forms a horseshoe on Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive (formerly Concord Avenue) (Eatonton City Council Minutes. March 5, 1991). At the time of this renaming, the street consisted o f only 5 houses (Rice 1997). The intent behind renaming this second street after King was to more firmly


incorporate it. symbolically and socially, with the larger community along Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive (Rice 1998). At a city council meeting on March 19. Eatonton postmaster Teddy Ricks asked that the city reconsider naming South Maple Drive after King. Specifically, he suggested that having two MLK addresses would create considerable “confusion for people living on the street and people working at the post office” (Eatonton Messenger. March 21, 1991, pp. 1 & 13). Upon this recommendation, the City Council then rescinded the name change. According to Rice (1997). the issue was dropped, although he believed that the opposition from postal officials was motivated more by racism than the logistics of mail delivery. Since this failed try. no other attempts have been made to (re)name a second street after King.


Chapter 5 Analysis of Case Studies

5.1

Purpose of Chapter The purpose of this chapter is to offer an analysis and evaluation of the

previously introduced case studies in light of the conceptual arguments developed in chapter two. The emphasis is on outlining the struggles that African-Americans in Statesboro (Bulloch County) and Eatonton (Putnam County) faced in attempting to (re)name a street after Martin Luther King, Jr. Specifically, I suggest that the two case studies illustrate, to varying degrees, the importance of four inter-related struggles, namely: •

The politics o f naming places. which refers to the struggle of African-Americans to inscribe their ideological values and aspirations about race relations into the symbolism of place names. MLK street (re)naming is contested because of competing interpretations and representations of the ideological purpose of (re)naming streets after King as reflective o f larger differences in how people envision race relations and racism.

•

The politics o f memory, which refers to the struggle of African-Americans to reconstruct society's collective memory of King through commemoration. MLK street (re)naming is contested because o f competing interpretations of King's historical importance relative to other visions of the past, particularly with regard to the resonance o f King's memory beyond the black community.

169


170 •

The politics o f geographic scale, which refers to the struggle of AfricanAmericans to construct and control the geographic scale of King's commemoration. MLK street (re)naming is contested because of conflicting ideas about what is the “appropriate scale" at which MLK should be commemorated in terms o f the size, prominence, and. most importantly, the spatial relationship of the potentially (re)named street to the white community.

•

The politics o f public space. which refers to the struggle of African-Americans to engage in the politics of legally constructing and regulating streets as public space. MLK street (re)naming is contested because of competing ideas about who should have a voice in re-identifying streets as well as the meaning and use of urban public space as an orderly, controlled place versus a place of free expression.

In each of these struggles, we see how the commemoration of King through street (re)naming is open to multiple, and often contradictory, constructions and how these differences illustrate the hybrid, overlapping nature of social identities and spatial struggles. In particular, the focus in these case studies was on differences within the African-American community over the street (re)naming issue. This is not to suggest that (re)naming streets after King is not affected by opposition from a white power structure and inter-racial ideological struggles. However, as established in chapter two. the cultural politics of place naming, particularly MLK street (re)naming, should not be characterized in such simple dualistic terms.

5.2

Analysis: Politics of Naming Places This dissertation has suggested that the naming of places can be used to serve

ideological and political interests, in effect becoming a powerful but often under analyzed tool in hegemonic struggles (Cohen and Kliot 1992). While scholars have traditionally emphasized the role of place naming as a form of symbolic domination and


171 control used by the state and other elites, recent research suggests that it can also serve as an avenue for marginalized groups to resist and redefine dominant ideologies (Myers 1996). As also established in recent place name literature, place naming plays an important role in legitimating or challenging prevailing ideas about race and racial identity (Berg and FCeams 1996). The history o f African-American place naming in Statesboro and Eatonton provides insight into how many African-Americans view place naming as a means of symbolic domination and resistance, an arena for struggles over their cultural identity, and a forum for ideas about race relations. For instance, in 1971 the issue of retaining the names of formerly all-black schools became a major political demand for Bulloch County African-Americans attempting to ensure equal treatment and position within the new structure of racial integration. Although actively resisted, the Bulloch County Board of Education still renamed the school in question and the short-lived boycott of schools failed to bring about requested changes. The issue of school renaming centered around the changing of Edward Johnson Elementary, named after a local black educator, to Southeast Bulloch Elementary. O f course, the preservation of local black identity can work both ways in impacting the politics of place naming by African-Americans. In 1997, when Reverend Early Humphries proposed that Johnson street, which also had been named for Edward Johnson, be renamed for King, fellow African-American leaders Donnie Simmons (president of local NAACP chapter) and David Shumake (City Councilman) voiced opposition because the street was already named in honor of a black man (Shumake 1997) In 1992, African-Americans in Bulloch County again found themselves holding the short-end of the place naming stick. Residents of the New Hope Community viewed the decision to officially name their road "Kennedy Bridge" as a subordination of their historical importance and racial identity. When speaking before the Bulloch County Commission on this issue, Reverend Early Humphries charged the commission with


172 racism and related this inequality in place naming to an even larger history of exploitative race relations: We all know our community has been robbed....We know you just don't take away a community name and give it to a private family. This is nothing new to us. It has been happening to us all down through history (Statesboro Herald. December 16. 1992, p. 8B). Evident in Humphries's words is the belief that changing the road's name to Kennedy Bridge symbolized a style of race relations in which the interests and symbolic needs of an entire black community were being subverted for the ideological interests of one white family. In this respect, Kennedy Bridge Road, while a symbol o f heritage for the Kennedy family, became a symbol of continued cultural and racial inequality for residents of the New Hope community. As suggested earlier in the dissertation, the dominance of one form of consciousness is never complete and can be challenged. Although the New Hope community failed to formally change the road's name to “New Hope” because of the strict legal rules for street renaming as well as their own weak mobilization, according to Reverend Humphries residents along the road still refer to it as New Hope Road despite the official change (Humphries 1997). As pointed out by Yeoh (1992), the existence of informal nomenclatures such as these represent a means of offering counter-hegemonic representations of the city. However, resistance to this place naming pattern remains informal. Place naming has also taken on considerable symbolic importance to AfricanAmericans in Eatonton. Naming a street after Alice Walker was not simply about honoring a prominent local figure but about bringing cultural recognition to AfricanAmericans in general. This idea was expressed by Dorothy M. Haith o f Fort Valley. Georgia in a letter to the editor of the Eatonton Messenger newspaper: Upon reading the recent action of the Eatonton City Council honoring renowned author Alice Walker, by erecting Alice Walker Drive, it is appropriate that council


173

members and citizens o f Eatonton and Putnam County be congratulated for recognizing the talents and abilities of their own black heritage....By honoring her. you have honored yourselves (Eatonton Messenger. August 8. 1985. p. 8). While many people, such as the author of this letter, interpreted the Walker street renaming as a symbol of racial progress, we should not loose sight of other, alternative interpretations. For example. Putnam County African-American leader Fannie Pearle Farley took a rather different perspective on the Walker street renaming and what it symbolized in terms of race relations. As indicated in chapter four, she disagreed with the decision of other African-Americans to name a largely black street after Walker. While City Councilman Ulysses Rice and other members of the NAACP were interested in linking the street's history with Walker’s life history. Farley envisioned Alice Walker Drive as a way of exposing the entire town and visitors to Walker’s legacy and hence the achievements of blacks in Eatonton (Farley 1997). Consequently, she preferred the renaming of a more prominent street outside the African-American community. As evident through the actions and comments of Farley, many African-Americans view place naming, particularly street (re)naming, not only as an arena for African-Americans to compete with whites over the power to reconstruct black identity but also a forum for African-Americans to compete amongst themselves over the larger ideological message of place naming. As the evidence above indicates. African-Americans in Statesboro and Eatonton recognize the role of place naming, particularly street (re)naming, in upholding and challenging certain prevailing ideas about race and race relations. With this in mind. MLK street (re)naming can be interpreted as an attempt by African-Americans to inscribe their ideological values and aspirations about race relations into landscapes where such expressions have traditionally been absent. However, the process of (re)naming a street after King in Statesboro and Eatonton was contested because people


174 in these towns, as with people all over the country, hold strong and often contradictory views on the state of contemporary race relations and the relative meaning o f racism. As I establish in this section, much of the public division over (re)naming a street after King reflects the different ways in which the black and white public conceptualize the relationship between these (re)named streets and issues of race and racism. As pointed out by Blauner (1994). whites and blacks often “talk past each other11because they define racism differently. According to him, “Whites locate racism in color consciousness and its absence in color blindness” (1997: 20). From this point of view, the affirmation of racial identity and difference through cultural practice would be considered a type of racism. As he also asserted, whites tend to see anti-black racism as a thing o f the past, supposedly ending with segregation, lynching, and explicit white supremacist beliefs. The African-American public, according to Blauner. defines racism much more in terms of power and how certain underlying structures and institutions maintain racial oppression even in the absence o f explicitly stated prejudicial attitudes. “Black people, they argue, can not be racist, because racism is a system o f power and black people as a group do not have power" (1994: 20). Rather than being a thing of the past, racism from the black point of view continues to exist and has taken on a much more insidious form. The notion that differences exist in how whites and blacks conceptualize race relations is further substantiated by the results of a 1993 Gallup Poll. On the 30th anniversary of King's “I Have a Dream" speech, 79 % of surveyed AfricanAmericans felt that whites underestimate the amount of discrimination there is against blacks. Conversely, 77% of whites surveyed felt that blacks overestimate the amount of discrimination there is against blacks. Additionally, while 90% of surveyed AfricanAmericans ranked “civil rights” as a “very important” issue, only 56% of whites shared the same opinion (Wheeler 1993). In conducting this dissertation's two case studies, I found that the politics of (re)naming streets after King resulted, in part, from the fact that participants presented


175 different interpretations and representations o f the ideological purpose and meaning of (re)naming a street after King. They conflicted over what these (re)named streets symbolized in terms of race relations. Specifically. I found evidence of four major views or representations: (1) MLK street (re)naming as a counter-hegemonic practice; (2) MLK street (re)naming as a racist practice: (3) MLK street (re)naming as a non-racial practice; and (4) MLK street (re)naming as a practice for focusing the black community. Struggles over street (re)naming occurred within the African-American community as well as outside of it when participants and activists approached the street (re)naming process with these different ideological visions.

5.2.1

MLK Street (Re)Naming as a Counter-Hegemonic Practice In this dissertation. I have suggested that MLK street (re)naming is viewed by

African-Americans as a means of challenging white-dominated ideologies about race relations and the perceived subordinate position/importance of blacks within society. Both historically and in the context of (re)naming streets after King, African-Americans have repeatedly seen place naming used by others to deny or de-legitimate their cultural importance. MLK street (re)naming for many African-Americans is about correcting or countering this ideological imbalance. Within Statesboro’s historical geography of place naming, (re)naming streets after King represented an opportunity for African-Americans to redefine an hegemonic landscape commemorating figures and ideologies with which blacks can not identify. The comments of Bulloch County NAACP leader Donnie Simmons epitomized how some African-Americans may see MLK street (re)naming as an ideological weapon against an oppressive white cultural structure: Interviewer: What do you say to those businesses on Northside Drive opposed to renaming the street after King? Donnie Simmons: Take Jones Lane Memorial highway out there. That road is named after a racist. Local leaders never asked us whether that road’s name bothered us. So I don’t have much sympathy for those businesses. We need a street that honors a man that symbolizes


176 something different about race. Dr. King stood for equality (Simmons 1997). Others in Bulloch County also thought that MLK street (re)naming could be used to reconstruct the ideological imbalance of the city, although not stated in the same confrontational way as Simmons. Such a feeling was evident in this anonymous suggestion submitted to the perimeter naming committee in 1994: I want to convey my personal suggestion to name the road: Martin Luther King Parkway. I agree that this naming would affirm an important segment of our Statesboro and county population and would be a healing and unifying act (Suggestions Submitted to the Perimeter Naming Committee 1994) In this respect, the (re)naming of a road after King is conceptualized as a way of inscribing a new vision of race relations into the landscape. The preceding quotation suggests that such a (re)naming will “unify” and “heal” the assumed rift between AfricanAmericans and the remaining city and county population. Ironically, street (re)naming proved to divide the community as much as it unified it. As will be evident throughout this analysis, the Eatonton case was characterized by a lack of significant public debate or dialogue about (re)naming a street after King. However, in the one of the few news accounts of the process, Eatonton Messenger News Editor Gary Jones reported the comments of Fannie Pearle Farley and her supporters in their attempt to counter an earlier street renaming plan and put Kang’s name on a “more prominent” road than Concord Avenue. In presenting their case, the group showed concern that the renaming of Concord would make the city look less progressive than other cities. They asserted that King was an important symbol for everyone and that placing his name on a major road would project a more positive image to those living in the town and to the larger outside world: "We understand that an earlier group (of African-Americans) came before you about renaming Concord Avenue, but we believe Eatonton is no less a place than a lot of larger cities that have renamed major roads in honor


177 of Dr. King." said Mrs. Farley. "This person (Dr. King) helped each of us." Other members of the group told the city council that they felt renaming a major road through the city would “set a good tone for the city and community" (Eatonton Messenger. October 18. 1990. p. 1) Of course, in Farley's case, she was using MLK street (re)naming not only to challenge prevailing white views about King but also prevailing black views about the most appropriate way of commemorating King through street (re)naming. The situation in Eatonton greatly supports my earlier contention that the hegemonic southern social order is not strictly a white construction but a hybrid mix of social groups, alliances, and agendas that are “black” as well as “white.” From Farley's pont of view, the black hegemonic order was perhaps the local NAACP or City Councilman Ulysses Rice, who helped navigate the renaming of Concord Avenue through the Eatonton City Council. In this instance, (re)naming streets after King is not only part of the symbolic struggle between black and white southerners but also can be interpreted as a form o f symbolic resistance or domination within the African-American community.

5.2.2

MLK Street (Re)Naming as a Racist Practice While many African-Americans I spoke with in Statesboro see MLK street

(re)naming as way of correcting a long standing imbalance in power, some whites within Statesboro viewed the (re)naming of a street after King as a racist act by AfricanAmericans. For example, in supporting her choice o f naming the Perimeter Highway for Veterans rather than King, one Bulloch County citizen stated: “Veterans Memorial is the ideal choice for Statesboro. It is not a racist name and includes our brave men of war” (Suggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee 1994). When interviewing (often unsuccessfully) the owners of businesses located along Northside Drive, some equated (re)naming streets after King with other preferential, “color conscious” practices they considered “racist.” such as Affirmative Action.


178 A situation in Eatonton illustrates rather well how whites perhaps perceive MLK street (re)naming as a form of preferential treatment based on race. Pat Dennis, a white female and director of the Putnam County Branch of the Uncle Remus Regional Library, made this statement when I inquired about the events surrounding the street renaming: “I heard that blacks would get a federal grant of money if they got a street named for King. You should look into that” (Dennis 1997). There is no evidence that such a federal grant opportunity existed, but it further illustrates, nevertheless, how some whites interpret street (re)naming as a form of “reverse discrimination” because it involves publicly asserting the importance of King, who they see as an advocate of African-American identity and interests. In the case of the aforementioned librarian, she (and the source of her information) interpreted MLK street (re)naming less as a sincere commemoration and more as part of a larger plan by African-Americans to get an economic advantage over others in the community. The implication that the street name change has its origins in the federal government rather than the local African-American community resembles the arguments that were often put forth by white opponents of the Civil Rights Movement in attempting to de-legitimatize black mobilization. As discussed in the next section o f this chapter, supporters of MLK street (re)naming often try to counter opposition such as this by emphasizing the multi-racial importance of King's achievements. One incident in Statesboro brings into focus how the politics of MLK street (re)naming are related to competing ways in which blacks and whites define the meaning of racism and its relative significance within society. This incident also shows us how these perceptual differences over the purpose and meaning of MLK streets can create strong racial division, which further fuels these competing feelings. In March o f 1997. five women (four black and one white) were fired from the Statesboro Women’s Shelter for allegedly breaking confidentiality, jeopardizing the well-being of clients, and showing insubordination against the director. According to these former employees,


179 who have filed a law suit against the shelter and its board of directors, trouble began in January of 1997 when their white supervisor. Toby Horton, overheard them talking about (re)naming a street after King. Loretta Williams was at the center of this controversy as one of the African-American women fired from the shelter. The following newspaper excerpt offers her perception of the incident: She (Horton) came in and said, “Don't y'all have enough named after that man (King)?” I said, “we don't have a street in Statesboro. She (Horton) said, “You don’t need one.” I said “That’s your opinion” then she went on and on....Others in the group said Horton later called me a racist. I came in after that and told her I was not a racist....Burdette and Mercer (two other women who were fired) said that after I went out, Horton told them they were not allowed to talk about black issues at the shelter anymore (Statesboro Herald, April 3, 1997, p. 6). The conflict at the women's shelter illustrates how whites and blacks view the ideological meaning of MLK street (re)naming, as a project in race relations, in conflicting ways. As evident in her words, Horton labeled Williams's desire to have a street (re)named after King as “racist.” She even refers to the very issue of street (re)naming as a “black” issue, thus revealing how she sees the practice in terms of color consciousness. By suggesting that African-Americans do not need a street (re)named for King, she was implying that race and racism were no longer important issues. On the other hand, Williams defends the idea of (re)naming a street after King in terms of inequality or an unfairness in opportunity. Specifically, she is bothered by the fact that Statesboro does not have an MLK street even though other cities do. By doing so, she is implying that a form of racism still exists, which is counter to her supervisor's implication. The supervisor’s decision later to forbid the discussion of “black” issues at the shelter further reinforces the idea of racism as an imbalance in power. In this respect, both participants in the conflict see a relationship between MLK street (re)naming and race, but in very different, contradictory ways.


180 5.2.3

MLK Street (Re)Naming as a Non-Racial Practice In Bulloch County, white business owners along Northside Drive who opposed

renaming the street after King did not take the stance of the women's shelter supervisor. who represented it as a “racial” issue. In fact, many of the Northside Drive business owners with whom I spoke asserted that the street (re)naming issue, and their opposition to it. had nothing at all to do with race but economics. For example, the white owner of a barbeque restaurant on Northside Drive was quoted by the newspaper as saying: Race has nothing to do with it (renaming Northside after King). It is about the money required to change my address on menus and brochures. I wouldn't care if people wanted to rename Northside Drive George Washington Street. I would still be against it (Statesboro Herald. February 27, 1997, p. 1) Evident in this person's words is an attempt to de-racialize the street (re)naming issue, asserting specifically that he would even oppose the renaming of his street after a white historical figure such as Washington. Similarly, in an interview with this author, the white owner o f a print shop on Northside Drive cited the cost of reprinting materials with her new address and the possibility of delivery trucks getting lost because of the address change. Strangely enough, if the street renaming initiative had succeeded, her printing expenses would have been lower than perhaps any other business since she is a printer. In fact, her printing business would have greatly profited from the name change because o f other businesses needing to re-print their stationary and forms. While opposed to renaming the street, she realized the importance of not appearing insensitive to the African-American community’s interests. When a group of what she called “racist” businessmen tried to convince her to sign a petition opposing the street name change, she refused to sign because she felt that the petition was motivated by “race” and she did not want to run the risk of losing her black customers. However, this same businesswoman also said that she thought blacks got too much in terms of preferential treatment and she implied that (re)naming a street after King was going too far in this direction. In contrast


181 to some white opponents who have emphasized the “racial” meaning of commemorating King, it was in the interest of this business owner and other whites to represent MLK street (re)naming as a “non-racial” issue and represent their opposition as “non-racist." In all fairness, many whites perhaps do not see their opposition to MLK street (re(naming as racist because it is not an action resulting from a direct and explicit discrimination based on color. As suggested by Blauner (1994). however, African-Americans define racism much more broadly. Conflict arises because the argument whether legitimate or not. that opposition to MLK streets is un-related to race flies in the face of AfricanAmericans who view this same opposition as very much a matter of “race.” AfricanAmerican leaders in Statesboro, as in other cities, claimed that the arguments made by Northside business owners were simply excuses, masking a larger and deeper racism on the part of their opponents (Shumake 1997). NAACP leader Donnie Simmons (1997) suggested just this in an interview when I asked him to respond to the supposedly "nonracial" concerns of businesses owners who would be affected by the street renaming: We're not trying to push this (street naming) down the throat o f merchants. The address change can be phased in. Customers will still know where these businesses are. It's not like we're asking them to roll up the street and move it to the black side of town. It’s hard for a black person to get anything done in Statesboro. As will be discussed later in this chapter, it is quite possible that businesses owners, despite their attempts to represent MLK street (re)naming as a non-racial issue, interpret the address change as an uncomfortable geographic association between them and King, who they see as synonymous with the black community. As indicated by Simmons's words, he views business opposition to MLK street (re)naming as an issue of racism. He defines the importance of race and racism very much as a matter of institutional power and structural inequality when he states “It’s hard for black person to get something done."


182 The conflict in representing MLK street (re)naming as a “racial” practice versus a “non-racial” one was also evident in Eatonton. As the reader remembers, when the city council approved renaming a smaller, second road after King, a white official from the local post office opposed the renaming on grounds that it would create confusion over addresses. This argument represents the issue of MLK street (re)naming not as an issue of race relations but one of logistics and bureaucratic efficiency. African-American Councilman Ulysses Rice, who spear-headed the renaming of this second road as he had done the first, interpreted the postal official's opposition in very different terms. representing it as a manifestation of racism and a larger resentment of black gains made in the community dating back to redistricting and political representation. Interviewer: Why do you think the postmaster opposed renaming South Maple Drive after King? Ulysses Rice: The post office could handle it (the address change). I think they saw it (address change) as too much black manipulation. The mail men probably thought: “Who do these blacks think they are? They were dissatisfied with the ward system, they went to court and won. They wanted to honor MLK and did it. They have too much weight in this town” (Rice 1998). In this respect. Rice interprets opposition to MLK street (re)naming as a larger challenge to the structural and institutional changes that African-Americans have brought to Eatonton. As with Simmons in Statesboro. Rice interprets race and racism very much in terms of power, as manifested in his emphasis on winning, manipulation, and weight. This vision of race departs greatly from narrow "color conscious" definitions held by much of the white public.

5.2.4

MLK Street (Re)Naming as a Practice For Focusing the Black Community In chapter two, I pointed to the possibility that some African-Americans use

MLK street (re)naming as a device to orient and consolidate the “black” community and have little interest in challenging or gaining widespread acceptance from the white


183 community. While the politics of MLK street (re)naming in Statesboro was very much about challenging the views of local government officials and business owners. AfricanAmerican activists in Eatonton defined the larger social and political function of these streets differently. Councilman Ulysses Rice represented the renaming of Concord Avenue for King as a way of focusing the black public, particularly children, on King's importance and the larger achievements of African-Americans. On this point, he said: Helping to keep King alive in Eatonton was a way of showing a person the great opportunities that await black people. Black kids would have an opportunity to drive down the street (MLK street) and remember the things that black people can achieve. Even little children, who could care less. Everyday they ride down that street (MLK street), it gets drilled in them. When programs are held at the school, if they don't know anything else about Dr. King, they know his name is on a street nearby (Rice 1998). Rice's comments bring to mind Rhea’s (1997) assertion that the Race Pride Movement involves not only achieving cultural recognition within the larger society but also (re)educating minorities in their own heritage and cultural worth. In the case of Eatonton. one of the major conflicts over renaming a street after King occurred between two African-American leaders who conceptualized the political function of the streets in very different terms. As established earlier, Fannie Pearle Farley stressed the need to rename a major thoroughfare such as the bypass. From Farley's perspective, an MLK street, while serving to uplift the image of African-Americans, was a way o f bringing the importance of King to the attention of whites. In Rice’s case, an MLK street was much more defined in terms of what it could offer African-Americans in terms of inspiration and guidance. In this respect, MLK street (re)naming in Eatonton was characterized by a tension between using MLK street (re)naming as a counter-hegemonic device intended to challenge prevailing white ideological views versus its use as a way of consolidating and focusing the black community ideologically.


184 5.3

Analysis: Politics of Memory Collective memory theory has suggested that the past is never freely

reconstructed through commemoration. Commemorating the past is an inherently politicized matter because people hold competing and often conflicting perceptions of what is historically important. In this section, I suggest that MLK street (re)naming in both Statesboro and Eatonton was characterized and constrained by the “politics of memory.” the struggle of African-Americans to commemorate King in the face of competition from other social groups and actors wanting control over the memoriaiization process and seeing King and his historical legacy in different ways. Specifically, the ability of African-American leaders in Statesboro and Eatonton to commemorate King through street (re)naming was shaped, in part, by three commemorative issues: (1) King's memory is less important memory than others; (2) Not everyone can identify with King's memory; (3) King's memory is not the only one that African-Americans have an interest in commemorating.

53.1

King’s Memory Is Less Important Than Others As hypothesized in chapter two, the politics of commemorating King through

street (re)naming was shaped by competing interpretations and representations of King's historical importance and legacy. In the case of Bulloch and Putnam Counties, the evaluation of King’s importance was done relative to other competing historical figures and commemorative causes. For example, in May of 1997. after African-Americans in Statesboro made a second unsuccessful attempt to have a street (re)named after King. white City Councilman Jack Williamson offered this rather biting view on the legitimacy, or rather illegitimacy, of commemorating King through street (re)naming: Where is George Washington Boulevard? Where is Thomas Jefferson Boulevard? Where is Abraham Lincoln Boulevard? These men were far greater than King could ever dream (Williamson 1997).


185 Incidentally, Williamson was chair of the committee that designed the street naming ordinance that put a halt to renaming Northside Drive after King. Evident in these comments is the notion that (re)naming a street for King is not appropriate because other historical figures, specifically presidents such as Washington. Lincoln, and Jefferson, do not have streets named after them. In fairness, however, there are numerous features in the U.S. (e.g.. streets, counties, a state, and the capital) named after Washington. Moreover. Statesboro does have a "Washington" Street. While these comments are insightful. I found very few people in Statesboro or Eatonton willing to challenge King's historical legacy in these stark terms. In fact, the street (re)naming process in both case studies was characterized by limited public discussion of the legitimacy of commemorating MLK. Jr. The politics of memory were perhaps most clearly delineated in Bulloch County's first attempt at MLK street (re)naming, which centered around the naming o f a new perimeter highway. Supporters of naming the perimeter for King found themselves in a commemorative struggle with the local chapter of the American Legion and other military veterans. While carried out on many fronts, the struggle over the relative historical primacy of King versus veterans was evident in local newspaper editorials. After the initiation of the suggestion campaign for naming the perimeter. AfricanAmerican school board member and university professor Charles Bonds attempted to establish the legitimacy of naming the perimeter after King in a May 22. 1994 letter to the editor. In making his arguments. Bonds reminded the readers that King had been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his non-violent campaign against racism. He also pointed out that there were no monuments in Statesboro-Bulloch County that commemorated King's concern with equality and justice for all. This is in stark contrast, according to Bonds, to how King has been commemorated in other cities in the United States and the world. Evident in Bonds's plea is an attempt to establish the larger historical and political impact of Martin Luther King, Jr:


186 Isn’t it ironic that we. the citizens o f Bulloch County, have minimized and viewed as mediocre what Dr. King has done for our country in fostering equality? His fight for equality and justice has not only led to racial equality but human equality. South Africans, blacks, coloreds, whites. Indians, and others have come to grips with the recognition of the importance o f equality and justice....Can’t we dedicate a minuscule portion of our county's constructions in memory of Georgia’s and the world’s greatest citizen....Name the new bypass “The Martin Luther King. Jr. Boulevard” and let visitors and newcomers to our fine community know that we value equality and justice for all who may drive on the named highway (Statesboro Herald , May 22. 1994, p. 4). In a letter to the editor a week later, white local veteran Edgar Godfrey responded to Bonds’s naming request, focusing not on King's concern with equality but King's dedication to peace. If his (Bonds) criteria is to honor this road with the name of someone who has been designated as a “peacemaker,” let us honor the truly great peacemakers of our locality — the veterans who gave their lives or endured great physical hardship to preserve our continued peace and freedom. As a former combat infantryman, I salute the veterans of all races and propose that the new perimeter road be named “Veterans Memorial Parkway” in their honor (Statesboro Herald. May 29, 1994. p. 4A). What is perhaps most evident in Godfrey’s statement is the implication that King is somehow not “truly great” or somehow less worthy of commemoration than war veterans. This belief was articulated much more firmly by Ray Hendrix, white leader of Bulloch County's American Legion chapter, when he lobbied the city council to name the entire perimeter for veterans, rather than splitting it to commemorate King as well. In asserting the legitimacy of honoring veterans over King, Hendrix was quoted as saying: I respect Dr. King’s accomplishments but the soldiers and sailors who fought for America’s freedom helped make it possible for Martin Luther King to be a great man (Statesboro Herald, June 22, 1994, pp. 1 & 8). In Hendrix’s statement is an attempt to represent the past achievements of King as not only subordinate to, but also dependent upon, the historical legacy of veterans. That


187 same day. when requesting that the county commission vote to name the perimeter after King. Hendrix repeated this argument while also establishing the idea that the area's veterans, like the African-American community, had long been overlooked in terms of commemoration. W e've (veterans) supported everything in this county. Veterans of Bulloch County do volunteer work, support Scouting, support other community programs and nothing has ever been dedicated on behalf of the veterans. He said veterans of this county include all citizens, represent all people, and naming the road Veterans' Memorial Parkway is the least you can do (Minutes o f the Regular meeting o f the Bulloch County Board o f Commissioners. June 21. 1994). The preceding statement perhaps adds a new dimension to our understanding of the politics of memory, namely that marginalized social groups not only contest a prevailing hegemonic order for power to reconstruct the past but also compete with other groups who also may perceive themselves as “subordinate" and who have their own ideological interests in the commemorative process. These same feelings were expressed in several suggestions submitted to the Perimeter Naming Committee. As these two anonymous supporters of “Veterans Memorial Parkway” wrote: I am writing in support of this idea (naming Perimeter for veterans), as we know there are many veterans who served our country that have never gotten the recognition they deserve. This would certainly be a fitting tribute to everyone who has served in the uniform of our country CSuggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee 1994).

As you know, we have thousands of veterans living and working in the Statesboro/Bulloch County area. Many of them served our country at a very unpopular time....I believe this would be a fitting way to finally say "Thank You." (Suggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee 1994). Another theme evident in Godfrey’s editorial, the comments of American Legion leader Ray Hendrix, and the statements above is a tension between honoring King, a figure o f national and world importance, versus veterans, who Godfrey called the


188 “peacemakers of our locality.” In this respect, the politics o f commemorating King through street (re)naming are made difficult not only because of trying to convince the public of his larger historical importance but also because it involves prioritizing a national figure over local figures and identities. As the reader remembers, the Eatonton case was characterized by a decision over whether to name the city's bypass after King or the local mayor. In that case, honoring the mayor took precedence over King's commemoration. In addition to challenging the primacy of local figures, the commemoration of King in Bulloch County also confronted a somewhat post-heroic tendency away from honoring any single historic figure. For example, such a feeling was evident in a May 24. 1994 letter to the editor written by Quinton Hand, who lives along the perimeter road. The names of many notable people have been suggested as possible names for the road (Perimeter). I am vehemently opposed to naming the road after a person, less some more notable person is overlooked. Who in this county or state has the wisdom to make such a judgement? Let us name it what it is, the Statesboro Perimeter Road. This name will honor the citizens of Statesboro and Bulloch County and give direction to its purpose, it is a name that all can be proud of (Statesboro Herald. May 24. 1994. p. 4). In this respect, the struggle to commemorate King through street (re)naming in Statesboro was conditioned not only by competition from local veterans, who themselves felt marginalized, but also from members of the public reluctant to use the perimeter for any commemorative purpose other than honoring the city itself.

5.3.2

Not Everyone Identifies with King’s Memory One of the major factors affecting the politics of commemorating King in

America is not simply a struggle over convincing the public of King's legitimacy but convincing them that they have a personal stake or interest in his commemoration. In


189

struggling to (re)name streets after King, African-Americans confront the barrier that not everyone feels that King's commemoration has resonance in their life. As suggested by Schudson (1989). resonance is a key factor in shaping the ultimate power or influence of a cultural object. This issue of resonance is important to our study because it affects the extent to which people are willing to have their street, and hence their identity. associated with King. Events in Statesboro and Eatonton illustrate how the struggle to rename a street after King is affected by the extent to which people identified (or not) with this commemorative cause. The importance of resonance in Statesboro's commemoration of King is evident in comments presented in the earlier section. Although endorsing two different naming suggestions. Hand. Godfrey, and Hendrix suggest that each o f their respective suggestions would represent a wider population than if the road were named for King. Hand, for example, stated that naming the road the Statesboro Perimeter would “honor ail citizens of Bulloch County.” Godfrey stated that he wanted to name the perimeter in such a way as to honor “the veterans o f both races." Hendrix, in advocating “Veterans Memorial Parkway” stated that veterans “represent all people.” These comments imply that naming the perimeter after King is a symbol with which only African-Americans can identify. In contrast, naming the Perimeter in honor of veterans was represented as a bi-racial or multi-cultural symbolic project. The idea that the veterans' commemorative cause cuts across racial and other lines of identity was articulated very well in an anonymous suggestion to the perimeter naming committee: To be fair and impartial to all peoples, I suggest we go with the name of “Veterans Memorial Parkway.” This name would be all inclusive of males, females, all races, color, creeds, and all wars and skirmishes. With this name no one could claim they have been left out or not considered, for all families have, or have had a veteran in their family at some time (Suggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee 1994).


190 Veterans Memorial is represented as a “one commemoration-fits-all” type of naming, one that would unify rather than divide the city and county’s population. O f course, the implication is that naming the perimeter after King would not offer such unity. The widespread nature o f this belief was further substantiated in an interview with AfricanAmerican city planner Joseph Moseley when asked why the city council voted to name the perimeter for veterans rather than for MLK: “Members (of the city council) felt veterans represented a larger community than King. However, Dr. King stood for everyone, fighting for the poor. Poverty knows no race” (Moseley 1997). The politics of commemorating King through street (re)naming are shaped by a prevailing assumption that the historical relevance or significance of MLK is limited to the black community and that streets (re)named to commemorate King are somehow representative only of the black community. As evident in Moseley’s comments, however, African-Americans emphasize the universal importance of King’s legacy. An anonymous letter sent to the perimeter naming committee also put forth the idea that King's importance is not limited to one race or even one country: I think that Martin Luther King had profound effects on all o f America. He was an inspirer and friend whose love helped to change the attitudes o f the world. He has enlightened so many lives with his on-living dream. I think the road should be named MLK Drive. Having the Drive named such would express the thanks he deserves (Suggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee 1994). The politics of commemorating King are about building an image o f King that cuts across racial boundaries. This aspect of commemoration deals directly with the issue of scale, which is addressed in the next section of the chapter. The commemorative struggle between veterans and supporters o f MLK was perhaps also affected by timing. Specifically, the deadline for submitting perimeter name suggestions to the Bulloch County government ended on June 1, 1994, only a few days after Memorial Day. Perhaps more importantly, however, June 6, 1994 marked the


191 50th Anniversary o f “D-Day.” The local newspaper carried veterans-related articles for the two weeks preceding and coinciding with the D-Day anniversary. One of the anonymous suggestions submitted to the perimeter naming committee on May 30,1994 reflected how the naming of the perimeter was considered in close relation to the veterans’ holiday: As we have participated in our local observation of Memorial Day and seen it celebrated nationwide, what better tribute we can pay the memory of those who have served and died than to name this road in their honor? It seems a right time (emphasis added by author) (Suggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee 1994). It is quite possible that the Memorial Day celebration and the anticipation of the D-Day anniversary expanded the resonance of honoring veterans because of the power of holidays to briefly but intensely focus public attention and identification. In this instance, street (re)naming has to be examined within the larger commemorative genre that it shares with holidays. Of course, African-Americans have used this same relationship to their own commemorative advantage. For instance, the original request by AfricanAmericans to name the perimeter after King took place on February 1, 1994, only two weeks after the celebration of the King federal holiday. The second request by Bulloch County blacks to name a street after King took place in January 1997, only a few days after the King holiday. The idea that King’s commemoration is not identified with by everyone was not only a belief and stance taken by resistant whites and cautious elected officials but also among African-American leaders. The power of this idea in shaping the locational politics of MLK street (re)naming is perhaps no more evident than in Eatonton. According to Ulysses Rice (1997), Concord Avenue was considered an appropriate street to rename after King because it was primarily a black street and "we knew that the support would be strong there." In contrast, Fannie Pearle Farley first advocated the renaming of Jefferson Avenue, a major thoroughfare consisting up-scale white


192 residences as well as numerous businesses. When asked why the black community did not pursue Farley's suggestion. Councilman Rice responded that “There was no way the white community was going to consent to make Jefferson MLK....It was not going to happen." In the case of Eatonton, African-American leaders such as Rice believed that many whites perhaps do not identify with King’s commemoration. However, rather than challenge these notions, as was done in Statesboro and as Farley advocated, the black establishment simply pursued the renaming of a primarily African-American street where an historical identification with King was strongest. There are indications that Farley herself did not believe that white residents along Jefferson would support the renaming. When Rice offered to supply Farley with questionnaires to survey support for the renaming along Jefferson, she declined (Rice 1998).

5.3.3

King's memory is not the only one that African-Americans have an interest in commemorating In chapter two, I introduced the idea of a “hybrid politics of memory,” which

refers to the fact that one’s ideological interests in the commemoration (and hence street (re)naming) process can not be easily characterized as a dualism between two rival groups or perspectives as a traditional hegemonic perspective has suggested. Rather, people’s identities and interests are often overlapping and sometimes contradictory, thus leading to some rather unexpected political and commemorative formations. The politics of MLK street (re)naming in both Statesboro and Eatonton can not be fully understood without considering that King's memory, while certainly important, is not the only commemorative cause that African-Americans have an interest in pursuing. In this section, I will show how the politics of MLK street (re)naming were shaped by the multiple, hybrid nature of commemorative interests and identities within the AfricanAmerican community.


193 As mentioned earlier. Statesboro's first attempt to name a road after King involved a competition with local veterans groups who desired that the city's perimeter road be named as a memorial to them. In many of my informal conversations with African-American leaders in Statesboro, almost no one criticized or refuted the right of veterans to be commemorated or memorialized through street (re)naming, although many asserted the greater necessity of commemorating King. Some African-Americans found themselves in a difficult ideological position as both supporters of honoring King and veterans wishing to have their sacrifices also honored. According to white local American Legion leader Ray Hendrix, many black men signed letters of support for naming the perimeter for veterans (Hendrix 1998). These letters were eventually sent to the Bulloch County perimeter naming committee to assist in their decision making. Indeed, of the non-anonymous suggestions sent to the naming committee in support of MLK, the majority (66%) were sent by women with some coming from women's organizations such as The Negro Business & Professional Women Club and the Rain or Shine Social Club. Admittedly, women have tended to take a leading role in commemorative campaigns, as evident through organizations such as Daughters of the American Revolution and Daughters of the Confederacy. However, the weak presence of suggestions sent by men may be indicative of the multipositionality of AfricanAmerican veterans in this commemorative struggle. A September 1997 interview with African-American pastor Early Humphries brought this issue into sharper focus. If the reader recalls, Humphries led the 1992-1993 movement against naming county road 580 “Kennedy Bridge Road” rather than “New Hope.” In 1997, he formally requested that the city of Statesboro name a street after MLK, Jr. In June 1994, Humphries spoke at a county commission meeting on behalf of naming at least a portion of the perimeter for King. When interviewed, Humphries (1997) described the difficulty in “placing" himself within the debate over commemorating veterans verus King:


194 Interviewer: How did you feel about the Perimeter being named for Veterans instead o f King? Reverend Humphries: I wanted King's name on the Perimeter road but I couldn't feel bad about honoring Veterans....I served during the Korean War. We should honor those who sacrificed so much. Humphries illustrates very well how the politics o f MLK street (re)naming were complicated by the fact that some African-Americans were literally caught between two memories or commemorative campaigns with which they identified and perhaps supported. The Eatonton case also demonstrates how the commemoration o f King can be made problematic because of the multiple and overlapping commemorative interests of African-American activists. If you remember, African-American activist Fannie Pearle Farley opposed the renaming o f Concord Avenue for King and pushed for naming the city's newly constructed bypass instead. When she proposed this during a City Council meeting, Farley was told by white city councilman Bill Haley, Jr. that he was hoping to name the bypass in honor o f James Marshall, then Mayor of Eatonton. While dissatisfied with not getting King's name on what she considered a more prominent road, she did not oppose the idea o f naming the bypass for Marshall. Her reluctance to oppose a Marshall Bypass was perhaps indicative of her own appreciation for the Mayor and support for honoring him. Indeed, the actions and comments of Farley appear to substantiate this. For example, in 1989 Farley and a coalition from the American Legion Auxiliary coalition presented the city a portrait of Mayor James Marshall to be hung in honor of his dedicated service (Eatonton City Council Minutes, January 3, 1989). Three years earlier, in January of 1986, Farley appeared before the City Council to express her appreciation to the council, and Mayor Marshall in particular, for their help obtaining and dedicating a monument to area veterans (Eatonton City Council Minutes, January 7, 1986). When asked to respond to the fact that the bypass was named for Marshall rather than King, Ms. Farley stated that she supported naming the bypass for Marshall because


195 he had long been a great political supporter of African-American causes, particularly the Early Childhood Development center which she directed (Farley 1997). In this respect. Farley’s identity in relation to the struggle to (re)name a street after King can not be fully understood without considering an overlapping, seemingly contradictory political interest she had in honoring Mayor Marshall, a commemorative interest she shared with opponents to naming bypass for King.

5.4

Analysis: The Politics of Geographic Scale While (re)naming a street after King is affected by competing interpretations of

King’s importance in relation to other competing commemorative interests such as those of veterans or local figures, the commemoration of King can not be fully discussed without discussing the role of geography, particulary scale. As established in chapter two, contemporary research (Smith 1993; Herod 1997) suggests that geographic scale be re-conceptualized in such a way as to recognize its controllable, changeable, and contestable nature. In this section, I illustrate how the issue of geographic scale figured directly into the idea of commemorating King through street (re)naming. At the same, however, I suggest that MLK street (re)naming was contested in Statesboro and Eatonton because of competing ideas inside and outside the African-American community about which street constituted the most appropriate geographic scale for commemorating King and carrying out the ideological purpose of street (re)naming. The next two sub-sections characterize the political struggles over geographic scale in both Eatonton and Statesboro. While African-Americans have typically tried to expand the geographic scale of King’s commemoration through street (re)naming, case study evidence presented in the third sub-section shows that, in some instances, African-Americans have pursued a political strategy of de-scaling or constricting the scale of King’s memory as a way of dealing with opposition to the street (re)naming process.


196 5.4.1

The Politics of Scale in Statesboro In his exploratory look at musical metaphors of scale, Howitt (1998) suggests

that scale can be conceptualized in a variety o f ways such as size, level within a hierarchy, and as relation between geographic totalities. While still somewhat undeveloped, it may prove interesting to see how these different facets of scale entered into the thinking o f participants as they discussed and debated the street (re)naming process. The events in Statesboro illustrate how many African-Americans conceptualized MLK street (re)naming as a struggle to construct and control the geographic scale of his commemoration. This struggle was waged inside as well as outside the AfricanAmerican community. For instance, during Statesboro's second try at street (re)naming in 1997, Reverend Early Humphries’s suggestion to rename Bulloch Street after King was opposed by fellow African-American leaders Donnie Simmons and David Shumake. They asserted that Bulloch Street, approximately half a mile long, was too short in terms of length (Shumake 1997; Simmons 1997). Eventually, Humphries joined Simmons in advocating the renaming of Northside instead. City planner and black pastor Joe Moseley, while preferring that Northside Drive be renamed, held a rather different view of the scalar dimensions of Bulloch. Because Bulloch intersected with Main Street and had a sign visible to drivers on Main, he asserted that this street was not entirely undesirable. African-American leaders were also opposed to renaming Johnson Street. In addition to the fact that Johnson Street was already named after a black man, there was great concern with the fact that Johnson Street had a poor reputation within the city as a drug purchasing point. Johnson Street did not represent an appropriately moral space within which to commemorate King. In contrast, the renaming of Northside Drive was seen as an appropriate scale. Donnie Simmons, for example, pointed out that Northside Drive was a good choice because it runs through the city east to west with people from Savannah and Augusta coming in through the road. Shumake shared


197 Simmons's appreciation for the length and wide visibility that Northside provided in commemorating King. Clearly, African-American leaders in Statesboro held strong views about how the geographic scale of King’s commemoration should be constructed in terms o f a street's length (size) and prominence (level within a hierarchy). However, they also viewed the geographic scale of commemorating King in terms o f relations, specifically race relations. While a street’s length and prominence were important, the politics o f MLK street (re)naming was also about constructing the geographic scale of King’s memory so that it would extend beyond the confines of the black community and into the residential and commercial lives of whites. Local NAACP leader Donnie Simmons revealed his rationale for constructing the geographic scale of MLK street (re)naming in such a way as to transcend the boundaries o f the black community: Dr. King lived a highly visible life and should have a highly visible place named....I can never agree to renaming a street within the black community (such as Bulloch, Blitch, or Johnson)...This would bury Dr. King in the black community and say that Dr. King was only for the black community....King was against injustice for every man (Simmons 1997). As evident in Simmons’s statement, the scale at which King is commemorated through street (re)naming is seen as a vital part of its political and commemorative message. In order for King to be represented and viewed as a figure o f historical importance to all people, his commemoration through street (re)naming must be constructed past the spatial relations of the black community. In this very instance, we see how important geography, specifically scale, is to the decision of how to commemorate. In addition to the road having substantial length (size) and prominence (level), Northside Drive also fulfilled Simmons’s wish to reconstruct the scale of street (re)naming in such a way as to touch different groups of people. The ability of African-Americans in Statesboro to construct the geographic scale o f King’s commemoration was constrained by competing ideas about what constituted an


198 appropriate scale of memory. In an interview, a white owner of a rental store on Northside Drive gave some of his reasons for opposing the street renaming. His reasons included concern over the cost of changing his address as well his own resentment of African-Americans getting what he called preferential treatment. After much discussion. however, he admitted that he was uncomfortable with the possibility of losing customers because of his business being identified with a street (re)named after King: When someone calls me up asking for directions to the store and I say: “We’re located on MLK road,” those people might think I’m located on the black side of town. Now. I’m not a racist but that fact may keep people from coming to my store (Durden 1997). In this instance, this business owner is contesting the possibility that the scale of King’s commemoration be constructed to include him and his business. The root of his fears lie in the fact that he associates (and strongly feels that others associate) a street (re)named after King with the black community. In contrast to Simmons, who advocated a scale of memory that recognizes the universal importance and resonance of King and his achievements, this business owner is advocating a scale o f memory that re-affirms traditional racial boundaries and race-bound notions of King’s resonance. Perhaps the largest barrier that Statesboro supporters of MLK street (re)naming encountered was the street renaming ordinance passed by the city in 1997. This ordinance severely limits the locational choices of blacks wishing to remember King through street renaming and makes the renaming of major streets seemingly impossible. The adopted ordinance has the potential to dramatically affect the scale at which King is finally commemorated in Statesboro. For example, given the reluctance of businesses to change their addresses, it is unlikely that African-Americans will be able to get the required approval of 75% o f the property owners along a commercial thoroughfare. Given the reluctance of many white residents and business owners to have their identity associated with King, it is quite likely that a renamed road, if one actually comes about,


199 would be a primarily black residential street where resonance with King is perhaps strongest. Even when holding the race of property owners constant, the requirement that the street name petitioner pay half of the cost o f changing the street’s name will certainly discourage the renaming of long, prominent streets with many intersections and signs. As is suggested in the next section on street (re)naming and the politics of public space, this ordinance reflects and further encourages the territorialization of street renaming, which is yet another barrier to African-Americans being able to control the geographic scale at which King is commemorated.

5.4.2

The Politics of Scale in Eatonton In the case o f Eatonton, size and level of prominence, as facets of geographic

scale, played important roles in discussions over commemorating King through street (re)naming. For example, in explaining his support for renaming Concord Avenue after King, Eatonton City Councilman Rice stated: "Concord ran all the way through the county to Pearidge Road near Highway 441." Indeed, Rice was correct on this count. Martin Luther King Drive in Putnam County stretches over 4 miles connecting black residential areas of varying value with rural dairy farms. To emphasize the relative prominence of the renamed street, Rice added: "most of the houses (along MLK Drive) are fairly decent by black standards." This emphasis on the street being evaluated by "black standards" is important to our discussion here in that Rice advocated the geographic scale of Martin Luther King, Jr. be limited to the spatial confines of the black community. From Rice's point of view, the scale of Martin Luther King Drive is appropriate for what he envisions as its political and social purpose, which is the upliftment of the black community. When asked whether he considered the (re)naming of Martin Luther King Drive a success, Rice (1997) stated:


200 If naming the street after King hasn’t done anything else, it has pulled people together who want to live in a decent neighborhood. Black people have a place to be proud of. While Rice advocated that a largely African-American street is an appropriate geographic scale for commemorating King and representing the achievements of blacks, Fannie Pearle Farley countered by suggesting that the geographic scale o f street (re)naming should extend beyond the black community. In building her conception of an appropriate scale at which to commemorate King, Farley emphasized the importance of naming a street that would be visible to and touch both black and white residents and visitors: Signs are important. The problem with Concord Avenue (MLK Drive) is people going through Eatonton can’t see it. Where it is now, people don't know it’s there. The magnitude of King demands that a prominent street be named after him, not one stuck in the black area of town After all. King did not fight just for blacks but for everyone (Farley 1997). Farley, like Simmons in Statesboro, is suggesting that in order for King’s memory to be a visible and meaningful part of the lives of whites and blacks, he must be commemorated at a geographic scale which provides such visibility to all races. Unlike Rice, her notion of geographic scale is concerned less with the size or length of street and more with its ability to transcend racial boundaries. While Rice is advocating a scale of commemoration that honors the traditional lines o f residential segregation, Farley is advocating that the scale of King’s commemoration be constructed in such a way as to break down what Rhea (1997) called the “segregation of memory.” From her perspective, the relative success of the street (re)naming campaign must be evaluated in terms of geographic scale. For example, when asked whether she thought that the street (re)naming had been a success, Farley (1997) stated: “No it wasn’t because having MLK Drive where it is does not give the community (the black community) full credit for its achievements. The street should have gone through a major thoroughfare.”


201 As one would expect, Farley’s conception of the “appropriate” scale at which to honor King evoked opposition from the city council, which proved reluctant to rename a street where residents might be in opposition. In contrast, the city council voted unanimously for the (re)naming of Concord Avenue. While elected officials had no problem with King’s commemoration as long as it was confined to the black community, African-Americans were still limited in terms of their ability to expand the scale of King’s commemoration even within African-American areas of the city. For instance, when Ulysses Rice and members of the NAACP attempted to rename South Maple Drive after King, they encountered opposition even though the second renamed road would still be located in the African-American part of the city. In this case, opposition came from a postal official supposedly concerned with the confusion that would result from having two similar addresses. As in the case o f Statesboro, African-Americans were constrained from fully constructing and controlling the geographic scale at which King will be commemorated through street (re)naming.

5.4.3

De-Scaling King’s Memory as Political Strategy A growing literature suggests that social groups and actors often reconstruct and

manipulate geographic scale as a means of political strategy (Smith 1993, Herod 1997). As established earlier, activists such as Donnie Simmons in Statesboro and Fannie Pearle Farley in Eatonton advocate the construction of King's commemoration at a geographic scale that would incorporate a recognition of King into the lives of whites and others who perhaps do not identify with him. However, the politics of MLK (re)naming should not be conceived only as a struggle to expand the geographic scale of King's commemoration. In both the Statesboro and Eatonton cases, African-Americans attempted to de-scale or reconstruct King's commemoration at a smaller, or less integrated, scale as a means of ensuring that King would indeed be commemorated and black identity would be represented in the landscape. For example, in 1994, when Bulloch County African-


202 Americans failed to get the entire perimeter road named for King, local leaders in the NAACP offered a counter-proposal of naming the western side of the perimeter, which was largely African-American, after King. The eastern side would then be named for Veterans. This proposal, however, was rejected and the entire perimeter was named in honor o f veterans. O f course, the failure of this effort affected the future politics of street (re)naming in Statesboro. Donnie Simmons reflected on how this situation shaped his thinking: We asked that they (local government) give us one section of the bypass. We were willing to settle for one part. They said no. My position after the bypass situation was that I wasn’t going to settle anymore. We want Northside Drive named for Dr. King (Simmons 1997). From all indications, Simmons has been true to his word, refusing to consider (re)naming smaller streets. Recognizing the extreme difficulty of (re)naming a street outside of the African-American community, Eatonton’s Ulysses Rice pursued the renaming of Concord Avenue because he was reasonably sure that he could get support for name change. In this instance, de-scaling King’s memory was perhaps seen as a more positive alternative to not having a renamed street at all.

5.5

Analysis: The Politics of Reconstructing Public Space The (re)naming of a street after King is not simply a matter of struggling against

competing ideas about race and King's memory but involves a fundamental reconstruction in the identity and symbolic meaning of public space. Literature cited in chapter two suggests that public space is not fully open or accessible to reconstruction by all social groups or actors. Past studies also suggest that the public space o f cities, as shaped through the discourse of law, are becoming more controlled and ordered at the sacrifice of their use for political expression and interaction. As illustrated in the Statesboro and Eatonton case studies, the decision to commemorate MLK through street (re)naming is a process that must go through the city's political and legal structure and thus is susceptible


203 to larger struggles over the meaning and use o f streets as urban public space. I illustrate in this section how the controversial and contested nature of MLK street (re)naming is related, in part, to the struggle of African-Americans to engage in the politics of legally constructing and regulating public space. Specifically, the ability of African-Americans to name a street after King was constrained by: (1) the territorialization of street naming; and (2) the tension between viewing streets names as representations of space versus spaces for representation. Underlying these factors are competing ideas about what constitutes an “appropriate” use of street names as public space. While these competing ideas of course came from opposing white elected officials and business owners, some also came from within the African-American community.

5.5.1

Territorialization of Street Names (Re)naming streets, particularly major thoroughfares, after King is problematic for

African-Americans because of the territorialization of street (re)naming. A common assumption underlying much o f the public policy on the reconstruction of public space through street (re)naming is that residents and businesses located on the street in question have a more legitimate voice in approving or revoking name changes. As Berg and Keams (1996: 111) pointed out, the politics of naming places is "both a politics of space (deciding who names and controls space) and a spatialized politics (whereby the spatial defines who has legitimacy to speak)." In analyzing public objections to the reinstatement of Maori names in New Zealand, they found people evaluating the legitimacy (and illegitimacy) of these name changes on the basis of where the person who initiated the toponymic change lived. The view that street name changes can not be made without the approval of the street's residents was often brought up in debating the decision to rename a street after King. For example, when asked by Fannie Pearle Farley to name the bypass after King, white city councilman Bill Haley, Jr. responded by stating that he didn't want to rename a


204 street if the people living on the street opposed it. Specifically, he said: “I don't want to shove this (renaming a street) down anybody's throat if they don't want it” (Eatonton Messenger, October 18, 1990, p. 1). In attempting to contest the primacy of this view of street naming, Farley (1997) stated: "No one asked me whether I wanted the name on my street." As Farley and her supporters also stated to the City Council, they choose the bypass because it had not yet been named and thus would avoid the controversy that may arise in trying to rename a street (Eatonton Messenger, October 18.1990, p. 1). Like Farley, supporters of MLK street (re)naming in Statesboro also recognized the controversial nature of reconstructing the identity of streets, particularly removing a street's name and replacing it with King’s. In fact, several suggestions submitted to the Bulloch County Perimeter Naming Committee in 1994 mentioned this in their support for MLK: I also respectfully suggest that it (naming perimeter after King) would honor a great man without having the need to "un name" another road in Dr. King's honor (Suggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee 1994). We believe it would be better to name the new perimeter road around the city the "Martin Luther King Perimeter" than to change an existing street name to honor him. Thank you for considering our proposal which we believe would make a positive statement about human relations in our community (Suggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee 1994). In this respect, people are considering and asserting the legitimacy of honoring King through street (re)naming in the context of how the road naming would challenge (or not challenge) territorial claims found on existing street names. Later in 1997, the territorializing of street (re)naming took on more formal dimensions in Statesboro with the passage of the aforementioned street renaming ordinance. In this case, one’s legitimacy in the politics of (re)naming a street after King, or anyone for that matter, would be determined by whether one owned property along the


205 potentially renamed street. As the reader remembers, street name changes had to be approved by at least 75% of a street's property owners or their representatives. Required approval went up to 100% when a street contained ten or fewer parcels of property. This ordinance, as a way of legally regulating street (re)naming as public spatial practice, defined the "public" very narrowly, not only in terms of one's spatial position on the street but one's position in class structure of property ownership. Left out of this ordinance are the voices of people who rent space along a street or who simply shop and drive along the street. Because almost all the businesses along Northside Drive are white owned (with the exception of one), this street renaming ordinance has effectively removed AfricanAmericans from "the public" supposedly represented by this street as public space. Indeed, Bulloch County leader NAACP leader Donnie Simmons has declared the ordinance to be “racist” (Simmons 1997). The political challenge for African-American activists is perhaps to deterritorialize the street (re)naming process, challenging the idea that one's interest in (re)naming a street is not limited to whether one owns property or even lives along it. This looks to be a difficult task considering the strength of the idea of property ownership within contemporary society (Blomley 1997). It is also problematic in that by challenging the territorial nature of street (re)naming, African-Americans are removing a conduit by which they can also bring about name changes. For instance, in the case of Eatonton, the NAACP was able to persuade the city council to rename Concord after King by providing evidence that the majority of residents along the street supported the change.

5.5.2

Street Names as Representations of Space versus Spaces for Representation In addition to the territorialization of street (re)naming, MLK street (re)naming is

being shaped by a larger struggle over the meaning and use of urban public space. This struggle, as defined by Mitchell (1995), is an ongoing tension between public spaces


206 being viewed and constructed as representations o f space (controlled space for orderly production and consumption) versus spaces fo r representation (spaces for unmediated political mobilization and expression). African-Americans find it difficult to name a street after King because people hold different views on the meaning of street (re)naming as a public spatial practice. While many African-Americans advocate the use of street names as a means of expressing themselves culturally and politically (spaces for representation), local elected officials and business owners along these streets advocate a notion of street (re)naming that protects established patterns of production and consumption within the city (representations of space). Opponents to renaming Northside Drive after King in Statesboro often cited how the name change would negatively impact their ability to conduct business. For example, the owner o f a paint company on Northside Drive cited the problems that the renaming would bring, comparing it to the economic disruption caused by the implementation of the 911 system. I wouldn’t mind if Northside Drive was ceremonially renamed MLK Jr. Boulevard....But to change the mailing addressees of over 100 businesses would be individually and collectively an incredible cost. It would cost us I estimate around $4-56,000 dollars....Besides the up-front cost (of reprinting) there would be a significant cost associated with the mailing out o f invoices and collection of bills...The 911 address changeover created pure havoc. We have had several misunderstandings concerning bills....We have had invoices returned to us marked no known address. It in short has created some customer discontent for us 0Statesboro Herald, February 27, 1997, p. 1). While the legitimacy of the business owner's argument is open to debate, he is advocating a vision of public space in which any address change, even for the sake of the 911 system, is interpreted as a bad address change if it brings with it "incredible cost" (changes in production) and "customer discontent" (changes in consumption). African-Americans in Eatonton also confronted arguments that MLK street (re)naming should not interfere with and disrupt the flow of information within the city. In this case, the opposition came


207 from the white local postmaster, who suggested that (re)naming a second street after King would cause confusion in addresses and thus negatively impact the delivery of mail (production) and the hence the receipt of mail (consumption). O f course, as established in earlier sections, African-American activists in both towns challenged the legitimacy of these interpretations of the impact of MLK street (re)naming. Opponents of MLK street (re)naming in Statesboro did not always find themselves in agreement over how street name changes should fit into the protection of capital and the business interests of the city. For instance, David Colley, white owner of a barbeque restaurant on Northside Drive, offered this alternative to (re)naming his road after King: What I would like to see is that the new connector road that is to be built between the bypass (Veterans Memorial Parkway) and Brannen Street that passes behind Statesboro Mall named MLK Jr. Boulevard. There's no existing businesses on the road, and when built the new businesses will know from the get-go what their address will be. This road will be one of the most highly traveled streets in Statesboro and will have a very high profile. I would estimate at least 1,500 to 2,00 cars a day would use it. With the naming of this street there would be no negative impact on any existing business or residences (Statesboro Herald, February 27,1997, p. 1). The idea of naming the connector road (also known as the Brannen Extension) instead of Northside was also suggested by white city councilman Wendy Hagins immediately following the passage of the street renaming ordinance discussed earlier (Hagins 1997). However, when I mentioned these alternatives to white city councilman Jack Williamson, who chaired the committee that designed the street renaming ordinance, he responded: Wendy should not have said that about naming Brannen We should hold off on any talk about naming the connector road after King. If not, this could jeopardize negotiations for the purchase of land for the road. We don't need to scare anyone off unnecessarily (Williamson 1997). The comments presented above further substantiate how the politics of (re)naming a street after King involve struggling against attempts by business owners and elected officials to


208 control the locational dynamics of urban development As indicated, however, the politics o f urban development are so contested that MLK street opponents disagree on where exactly King’s memory can be placed within the city. O f course, these conservative reactions to street (re)naming are not limited to King. As African-American city planner Joe Moseley (Moseley 1997) stated: “We (the city) don’t name or rename streets very often, except when generated through new residential or commercial developments." As with its opponents, supporters of MLK street (re)naming advocated different visions of how street (re)naming should be carried out as a means of political expression. Earlier in the dissertation, I pointed to the existence of a rift in the Statesboro AfricanAmerican community between NAACP leader Donnie Simmons and City Councilman David Shumake. As the reader remembers, Shumake served on the committee that designed the street renaming ordinance which halted the renaming of Northside Drive. To add insult to injury, Shumake voted along with other city council members in passing this ordinance in a May 20, 1997 public council meeting. When asked about his lack of resistance to the ordinance, Shumake (1997) gave his view on the politics of street (re)naming: I did not push the renaming of Northside because I am an elected official. The black community should not approve naming being pushed down anybody's throat. It should come from the community....The ordinance actually protects black interest. Once we get an MLK street, opponents will not be able to change it back. We don’t want to be like the City of Albany where they renamed a street and then reversed their decision. Street naming should not be easy for any purpose. We should make it (street naming) difficult for both sides. Blacks can get Northside renamed if they organize, shake bushes, and mobilize. Also revealed in these comments is how the politics of MLK street (re)naming in Statesboro were affected by Shumake's overlapping, hybrid identity as both an AfricanAmerican wanting to commemorate King and an elected official who, as he defines himself, should remain impartial. Rather than seeing the ordinance as putting a barrier in


209 front of attempts to rename a street after King, Shumake represents it as an opportunity. Donnie Simmons (1997) differed dramatically in his interpretation of the ordinance and how MLK street (re)naming should be carried out as a means of political expression: This ordinance thwarts the efforts of African-Americans. Have you read the ordinance carefully? Even if we get 75% approval from Northside businesses, it is still up to the city council. So this ordinance is not worth the paper it is written on. Why not do the right thing, go in and mandate the street naming like they did it in Americus. In Americus, they had one hearing, the city council voted, and gave businesses 18 months to phase in (address change). In direct contrast to Shumake, Simmons feels that (re)naming a street after King should be mandated by the city council rather than determined by a collection of signatures. A similar division arose in Eatonton. Fannie Pearle Farley, like Simmons in Statesboro, felt that the city council should mandate the (re)naming of a major thoroughfare after King (Farley 1997). Unlike Shumake, Ulysses Rice used his position as councilman to push the renaming of Concord Avenue. Like Shumake, however, Rice advocated a street (re)naming process in which African-Americans would mobilize support, such as through the use of questionnaires and petitions as the NAACP had done under his leadership. These diverging views indicate that MLK street (re)naming is made problematic not only because of attempts to keep street (re)naming from disrupting patterns of production and consumption but also because African-American leaders can not agree on how street (re)naming, as a mode of cultural and political expression, should be carried out and regulated.


Chapter 6 Conclusions

6.1

Summary of Findings and Contributions This dissertation has attempted to explore, theoretically and empirically, the

emerging cultural geography of (re)naming streets after Martin Luther King in the American South and Georgia in particular. MLK street (re)naming is part of the larger changes occurring in America’s geographies of memory as minorities, particularly African-Americans, attempt to redefine public representation of the past as a means of reconstructing their identity and relative importance within society. This movement has recently been called the “Race Pride Movement” by Rhea (1997). Although not addressed by Rhea, place (re)naming is emerging as an important and controversial symbolic platform for rewriting public history and identity. Commemorative street (re)naming has proven to be one of the most common and controversial of these toponymic changes in America. Despite this apparent importance, relatively little attention in geography has been paid to analyzing recent changes in America’s commemorative street name landscape and the role of these changes in the “Race Pride Movement” and struggles over racial/ethnic identity in America. An analysis of (re)naming streets after slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. provided an opportunity to fill this void somewhat. As stated by Azaryahu (1997), “In the jungle of modem cities, street names are more than a means of facilitating spatial orientation. Often they are laden with political meanings and represent a certain theory of the world that is associated with and

210


211 supportive of the hegemonic socio-political order" (p. 480). Commemorative street (re)naming is a particularly powerful and controversial form o f memorialization because of its dual and simultaneous existence as historical referent and spatial designation. While contributing to its commemorative power, it is the potential of streets to touch and connect so many different groups and actors which makes (re)naming so controversial relative to other, more analyzed and ostentatious forms such as memorials, monuments, holidays, or even the naming of other features. Unlike a monument or memorial, a (re)named street can not be as easily avoided, bypassed or ignored, particularly for those living on the street who have their spatial identity linked so tightly with the commemoration. The commemorative dynamics behind the (re)naming of streets after King are similar to those behind establishing and observing a King holiday in that both extend their spheres of influence into the lives and geographies of people who may not identify with the person being commemorated. However, unlike a holiday, a change in a street name lasts longer than one day a year. Because street names are intimate and enduring parts o f everyday life, we should expect to see intense political struggles over their commemorative naming or renaming. Perhaps because o f this traditional under appreciation for the commemorative and political importance of street names, MLK street (re)naming has been a largely neglected topic inside and outside geography. By establishing the unique quality and importance of street (re)naming as a form of commemoration, this dissertation has hopefully provided the rationale for not only more work on the toponymic commemoration of King but other street (re)naming patterns that would have been otherwise neglected. The American South is a region where the racial politics of commemorating the past have become extremely contested. On the one hand, we have seen the deConfederatization o f the South's Geographies o f Memory as manifested in public debates over flying the Confederate flag, the playing of “Dixie” at public events, and the continuing presence of Confederate memorials in the landscape. While many of these


212 battles are being fought in state legislatures and city council meetings, these struggles have extended themselves into cyberspace at Web sites such the Heritage Preservation Association (http://www.hpa.org/) and League o f the South (http://www.dixienet.org/). At these sites, neo-Confederates are using the unique communication capabilities of the Internet to mobilize and resist challenges to their representations of southern heritage and identity. As suggested in other work (Alderman and Good 1997), cyberspace represents an emerging site for the study of regional identity and representation, and a fertile area for work in the politics of collective memory. Amidst challenges to the region’s Confederate symbology, we have also seen what I call the AfricanAmericanization o f the South's Geographies o f Memory. Blacks, motivated by the “Race Pride Movement” and their own emerging sense o f southern identity, are exerting a greater concern and influence over what visions o f the past will be used in representing the region and them as inhabitants of the region. While not limited to one period or theme, many of these new geographies of African-American memory commemorate the Civil Rights Movement. (Re)naming streets after King provides us a window into the South’s changing geographies of memory and the cultural politics of race underlying these changes. The issue of geography is largely missing from many discussions of the South’s symbolic struggles and discussions about the role of the “Race Pride Movement” in reconstructing the country’s collective memory and cultural landscape. Through an analysis of MLK street (re)naming, this dissertation has attempted not only to document the role and struggles of African-Americans in reshaping cultural landscapes of the South but, more importantly, to show the importance of geography, particularly the politics of scale and public space, to these commemorative struggles. As suggested in other studies before this one, geography is more than simply the stage or backdrop to the commemoration of the past. Rather, the project of commemorating the past is a geographical one and the politics of (re)naming streets after King can not be understood


213 without a sophisticated understanding of how' the politics of (re)constructing geography affect the politics of (re)constructing the past. Another important theoretical agenda of this study has been to develop a more critical study of place naming that recognizes the necessity of examining the intra-urban locational characteristics and politics of street (re)naming, the role of place naming in contemporary race relations and debates over cultural identity, the hybrid and overlapping nature of interests involved in place name conflicts, and the position of place naming within ongoing struggles over the meaning and use of public space within cities. It is my hope that this dissertation represents an important first step in developing a more critical understanding of the spatial dynamics and politics of place naming that has been absent from much traditional toponymic work and, to a lesser degree, more contemporary research in this area. The dissertation’s emphasis on political struggle is linked, in part, to recent theoretical changes in the field of cultural geography. Contemporary cultural geography, unlike its Sauerian predecessor, emphasizes: (1) culture as a socially constructed and politically contested medium: (2) the role of marginalized groups in resisting and redefining their identities and cultural spaces within cities: (3) the symbolic qualities of the landscape as reflective and constitutive of certain power relations within society: and (4) the power of geography in constituting and structuring social life and the cultural construction of identities. By examining the (re)naming of streets after King, I have hopefully provided insight into each of these areas of cultural geography as well as the specific politics of this new symbolic practice. The dissertation provided an introduction into some of the social groups and actors involved in street (re)naming and the nature of controversies and struggles surrounding street (re)naming in the American South, particularly in the non metropolitan areas of Georgia. According to responses to a survey of city and county governments conducted by this author, actors involved in the MLK street (re)naming initiative range from national organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership


214 Conference (an organization that King once led) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to various local African-American actors such as community improvement associations, city council members, county commissioners, and King holiday-related coalitions. While opposition often comes from white citizens and local government officials, controversy over street (re)naming is not always clearly divided along racial lines, but is also shaped by social relations within the African-American community. The politics of (re)naming streets after King is not just about the legitimacy o f whether King should be remembered, but at what scale he will be commemorated and where King’s memory is best situated within the city’s larger social and economic geography. For example, disagreements are often about whether MLK streets should be confined to predominantly African-American areas of the city. While African-Americans have attempted to convince the public of the importance of King's memory to all races, many people still see the historical relevance or resonance of MLK limited to the black community. Controversy also arises over where these (re)named streets should be located in relation to the business or commercial portions of the city. Some of the most vocal and powerful opponents to street (re)naming are businesses located on potentially (re)named streets, who cite, whether legitimately or not, the cost and burden of reprinting forms, stationary, and advertisements containing the address change. Some business and property owners have gone as far as to express concern about the economic impact of having their street identified with King and, as they perceive it, the black community. One of the primary objectives and contributions of this dissertation was the identification and analysis of the spatial distribution of cities with MLK streets and the intra-urban location o f the (re)named streets within their respective city’s social and economic geography. With the exception of work by Stump (1988), little was previously known about the spatial extent, frequency, and nature o f MLK street (re)naming. In addition to being a decade old, Stump’s work left several questions


215 unanswered and his original data source was spatially biased against smaller places. In this study, I identified and analyzed spatial variation in streets (re)named after King using electronic phone directories, which are under-utilized tools in contemporary place name research. While not flawless, the electronic phone directory has proven to be a far more definitive and valid data source than the National Five Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory originally used by Stump. Data collected led to the following findings. In 1996, there were 483 cities/towns in the United States with a street (re)named after King. Sixty-seven percent of these are concentrated in six southern states. While Georgia has the largest absolute number of places with a (re)named street (72), Mississippi leads the nation with the highest rate of street (re)naming (20% of all places). While street (re)naming is evident across the nation (with the exception of much of the New England and West Mountain regions), the number of (re)named streets is highest in the Confederate South which has 77% of all MLK streets. However, street (re)naming is not strong throughout all the states of the Confederate South, and further research reveals that the South is less dominant in its share of residences and businesses located on MLK streets. Among other things, this finding is perhaps indicative of regional variation in the prominence o f streets (re)named after King. In fact, when compared to the national norm, eight of the eleven southern states have larger ratios of residences to businesses located on (re)named streets. This is further substantiated by the fact that MLK streets in the South appear much more residential than the region’s “Main Streets." Contrary to the ideas first established in Stump’s study, MLK street (re)naming occurs throughout the South’s urban hierarchy and, in fact, is part of non-metropolitan southern life. Well over sixty percent of the region’s cities with an MLK street have populations of 9,999 and less. The largest share of MLK streets is found in places with populations ranging from 2,500 to 9,999. Such results point to the relevance of studying street (re)naming at the lower end of the urban hierarchy. Street (re)naming appears


216 connected to the relative size of a city’s African-American population. Well over 65% of MLK street (re)naming has taken place in cities where 10-49.9% o f the population is classified by the US Census as black. However, the majority of African- Americans in the region live in places with no MLK street. Southern blacks are best represented, in terms of the statistical frequency of (re)named streets, in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Mississippi. They are most under-represented in the states of Virginia. South Carolina, and Tennessee. As suggested throughout this dissertation, struggles over (re)naming streets after King often revolve around issues of intra-urban location. Despite the importance of these issues, little is known about the residential and commercial characteristics of MLK streets. Analysis of 220 census tracts/block numbering areas (BNAs) in 117 cities revealed that census areas containing streets or portions of streets (re)named after King are predominantly African-American, poorer, and have a higher rate of renter-occupied housing when compared to city-wide figures. An analysis of data on non-residential establishments located on MLK streets revealed a great unevenness in the geographic frequency of businesses on streets and the emergence of the church as the most frequently occurring establishment, although there was also an over-representation of convenience stores, funeral directors, and retail liquor establishments when compared to the frequency of these business types within the entire database. However, among the businesses located on MLK streets, their characteristics in terms of employee size and sales volume are consistent with regional patterns of all businesses. According to a survey of 52 Georgia cities with streets (re)named after King, the largest number of streets have been (re)named from 1989-1993 and the majority after the establishment of the MLK holiday in 1984. Another major objective of this dissertation was to articulate a theory for explaining the politics of MLK street (re)naming and then to evaluate such a theory by conducting a case study of two cities in which street (re)naming has proven particularly


217 contentious. The two case studies were set in non-metropolitan areas: (1) Statesboro, Georgia, a small but rapidly growing town in southeast Georgia in which AfricanAmericans have been unsuccessful on two occasions in convincing their local governments to commemorate MLK with a street name; and (2) Eatonton, Georgia, a smaller but historically prominent town in Middle Georgia in which a street primarily within the African-American community was renamed for King but an attempt to rename a second street proved unsuccessful.

The theoretical framework developed in

this .study represents a contribution to the geographic literature in that I have situated place naming within recent theories about the cultural politics of landscape, collective memory, geographic scale, and public space. Specifically, I suggested that AfricanAmericans face four primary struggles in attempting to (re)name a street after Martin Luther King, Jr.: the politics o f naming places; the politics o f memory; the politics o f geographic scale; the politics o f public space. I found each of these struggles operating, to varying degrees, within Statesboro and Eatonton. Underlying all of these themes is a recognition of the hybrid nature of cultural identities and struggles. In contrast to the traditional hegemonic perspective, which views cultural politics in very dualistic terms of “the dominant group" versus “the subordinate group," the politics of naming streets after King resulted from the political negotiation of a series of complex, intertwined historical and geographic subjectivities and interests. The politics of naming places refers to the struggle of African-Americans to inscribe their ideological values and aspirations about race relations into the symbolism of place names. There is evidence to suggest that even before the decision to commemorate King, African-Americans in Statesboro and Eatonton viewed place naming as a means of symbolic domination and resistance, an arena for struggles over their cultural identity, and a forum for ideas about race relations. Much of the public division over (re)naming a street after King reflects the different ways in which the black and white public conceptualize the relationship between these (re)named streets and


218 issues of race and racism. While many African-Americans see the street (re)naming as a means of correcting a long-standing racial imbalance and cultural inequality, some white opponents contest it as a racist act because it affirms racial identity and color consciousness. Other white opponents, particularly owners of businesses on potentially renamed streets, have suggested that there is no relationship at all between their decision not to commemorate King through street (re)naming and ideas about race and racism. Rather, it is represented as an issue of economics, which serves to inflame AfricanAmerican activists who interpret this supposedly “non-racial” opposition as a “racist” response. Finally, as evident in Eatonton, some African-Americans do not envision or use the (re)naming of streets after King as a device for challenging white ideological views but invoke it as a way o f focusing and consolidating the black community. Another important theme arising from the Eatonton case was the use of MLK street (re)naming as a means of contesting and countering the prevailing black order as well as the white one. The politics of memory, a theme drawn from collective memory theory, refers to the struggle of African-Americans to reconstruct society’s collective memory of King through commemoration. MLK street (re)naming was contested in Statesboro and Eatonton because of competing interpretations and representations of King’s legacy. Specifically, MLK street (re)naming was complicated by the fact that King’s historical importance was represented as subordinate to the achievements of others such as war veterans and other local figures. In struggling to (re)name streets after King, AfricanAmericans also confronted the idea that King’s memory does not have the same resonance or relevance in everyone’s lives. Finally, the politics of street (re)naming was structured by the fact that King’s memory is not the only commemorative cause in which African-Americans are interested in pursuing. In the case o f Statesboro, AfricanAmericans found themselves holding multiple and conflicting positions in the struggle to name the perimeter road as a memorial to King or veterans. In the case of Eatonton, an


219 African-American leader found her struggle to name the city’s bypass after King made difficult because of her overlapping interest in honoring the Mayor, whose name was ultimately attached to the road. The politics of scale theme emphasizes the socially constructed and politically contestable nature of geographic scale. I suggest that the politics of MLK street (re)naming is a project in which geographic scale plays a critical role. As evident in Statesboro and Eatonton, MLK street (re)naming is conceptualized as an AfricanAmerican struggle to construct and control the geographic scale of King’s commemoration. Scale, in this respect, can be understood in terms of the street’s size or length, level of prominence within the city’s hierarchy o f thoroughfares, and ability to extend beyond the spatial confines of the black community. African-American attempts to construct the scale of King’s memory in such a way as to maximize his visibility, prominence, and resonance beyond the African-American community were constrained, however, by competing ideas inside and outside the black community about what is the most appropriate scale for King’s memory. Laws, such as Statesboro’s street renaming ordinance, can also severely restrict the geographic scale at which MLK street (re)naming can take place, if it can take place at all. However, the politics of MLK (re)naming should not be conceived only as a struggle to expand the geographic scale of King's commemoration. In both the Statesboro and Eatonton cases, African-Americans attempted to de-scale or reconstruct King's commemoration at a smaller, or less integrated, scale as a means of ensuring that King would indeed be commemorated.

The politics of public space theme attempted to position place naming within an emerging literature on the nature of public space within contemporary cities. The politics of public space refers to the struggle of African-Americans to engage in the legal construction and regulation of street (re)naming as a public spatial practice. First, I


220 suggested that (re)naming streets after King was shaped by the territorialization of street (re)naming in which one’s legitimacy in approving or rejecting name changes was determined by whether one lived along the street in question. Statesboro’s street renaming ordinance emphasizes the importance of property ownership in determining who can make territorial claims on street names as public space. Second. I suggested that MLK street (re)naming was made difficult because of the movement in many cities toward an ordered, controlled idea of public space (representations of space) in which production and consumption are protected against a vision of public space as a place of unmediated political expression and interaction (spaces for representation). While MLK street (re)naming campaigns in Eatonton and Statesboro were constrained by the tendency toward controlled representation within cities, they were also contested because African-American leaders could not agree on how street (re)naming, as a mode of cultural and political expression, should be carried out and regulated.

6.2

Policy Implications This research was not undertaken with the intent of offering policy

recommendations on how communities should approach or deal with the politics of (re)naming streets after King. However, as shown in this work, it is increasingly likely that towns or cities with a significant African-American presence, particularly those located in the American South, will ultimately face this issue if they have not already. It is equally likely, although not guaranteed, that these same cities and communities will find themselves embroiled in conflict and controversy over the street (re)naming issue. Given the increased frequency and controversial nature of MLK street (re)naming, I do feel it is necessary to offer some ideas about how this study can perhaps inform public policy. First, this research may be of interest to planners, public administrators, and elected officials as they attempt to develop a more sophisticated appreciation for the


221 commemorative power and politicized nature of MLK street (re)naming. There is evidence to suggest that the development of such a perspective is needed in some cases. For instance, on a mail survey returned to the author, a city manager in Georgia wrote: “I really don’t understand why you want this information. Street naming is such an inane topic.” Much of the controversy over (re)naming streets after King can be traced to fundamental differences in people’s understanding o f the commemorative importance of street (re)naming. Many local government officials with whom I have spoken advocate a rather narrow, functionalist conceptualization of the social role of street names. “Streets are transportation routes not memorials,” suggested one respondent to my survey of cities with a street (re)named after King. Inherent in this comment is a belief that the role of a street name as a spatial designation overrides its role as a historical referent or commemorative symbol. In contrast, supporters of MLK street (re)naming emphasize the street name’s symbolic and commemorative role to a much greater extent. In order for local governments to deal fairly and respectfully with commemorative street (re)naming requests by African-Americans, they must openly recognize the reality that not all groups see streets, and the names used to identify them, in the same functional way that they do. There must be a fundam ental recognition that street names, as suggested by Azaryahu (1996), function simultaneously as spatial designations and historical referents and, as such, are open to legitimate symbolic challenges by AfricanAmericans as well as any other group. By re-conceptualizing street names in this way, they can also see how the existing place name geography may be written in such a way as to ignore the historical interests of minority groups and thus inspire the movement to (re)name streets for King. This research may also be of interest to African-American activists as they consider the struggles facing them if and when they pursue MLK street (re)naming. There is a great need for activists to develop tools and strategies for engaging in the legal reconstruction of the street name landscape. For instance, if African-Americans in


222 Statesboro are to ever rename a major street after King, they will either have to: (1) challenge the legitimacy of the newly created street renaming ordinance and its privileging of property ownership; or (2) mobilize enough support among property owners to qualify for a street renaming. In either case, supporters will have to become “street wise,” not in the conventional sense of being able to negotiate everyday public spaces of streets, but in the context of learning how street (re)naming is controlled within their city {de jure and de facto). Because street (re)naming is inconspicuous in many instances, few people outside of city hall or the county courthouse know what laws exist, if any, to retard or facilitate a street (re)naming campaign. In mobilizing property owners or residents in support of a street name change, it may be necessary for AfricanAmerican activists to consider how MLK streets can be made part of contemporary urban development. In Savannah, for example, elected officials were reluctant to rename a major thoroughfare after King until they saw that having King’s name on the landscape would complement downtown revitalization projects such as the building of a Civil Rights Museum and the historic preservation of segregation-era structures. Selma, Alabama’s MLK street is part of the city’s walking tour o f civil rights era sites. O f course, King’s memory can not become so commodified that it becomes an empty representation of the past, bearing no real reflection of the person or community commemorated. Such a shallow commemoration can create division along with unity, as evidenced by the protests of Jacqueline Smith against the conversion of the Lorraine Motel into the National Civil Rights Museum.

6.3

Future Research Directions This study has taken a foundational step toward better understanding the

geographic distribution, intra-urban characteristics, and spatialized politics of (re)naming streets after King. However, there are several areas in which future work could and should be conducted. First, additional work should be directed toward developing a


223 more complete statistical understanding of the spatial distribution and intra-urban characteristics of (re)named streets. It might prove insightful to expand analysis beyond the American South to see what regional differences exist, if any, between the types of cities engaging in street (re)naming and the types of streets being (re)named after King. For example, holding population size constant, are MLK streets in “southern” cities more residential, poorer, and more racially segregated than their counterparts in “nonsouthern" cities? As repeatedly established in this dissertation, our understanding of place naming and MLK street (re)naming can not be advanced in any significant way without knowing where these streets fit into the social and economic geography of their respective cities. In addition to analyzing regional differences in MLK streets, it would also prove interesting to compare the politics of street (re)naming in large metropolitan areas versus smaller or non-metropolitan areas. In addition to better defining where MLK streets fit into the statistical geography of the city, future work also needs to examine how these (re)named streets fit into people’s everyday experiences and perceptions. There are a number of ways of addressing these issues that this dissertation was unable to conduct because o f limited resources and the unwillingness o f certain participants. The first involves the use of surveys to measure people’s opinion about living or doing business on a street (re)named after King. For example, in the case of Statesboro, it would be helpful for AfricanAmericans in Statesboro to determine the full range of factors affecting business opposition to renaming Northside Drive after King. Another direction is the use of focus groups. In the case of Eatonton, for example, a group of residents living along the city’s MLK Drive could be assembled and asked to reflect on what it means to live along a road (re)named after King. Do they see their MLK street as a “success” in race relations? Has the existence of such a street changed how African-Americans see their relative position and importance within the city. Of course, both o f these approaches would allow us to measure and understand perceptual and political differences within the black


224 and white communities, thus providing further insight into what this dissertation has established as the “hybrid politics" of MLK street (re)naming. This dissertation has focused considerable attention on conflicts within the African-American community over street (re)naming. In carrying out future studies of street (re)naming, it might prove useful to focus more on differences within the white community. As indicated by Dwyer (1997), a growing number of studies are examining, theoretically and empirically, the social construction of white identity. Advancing our understanding of the politics of MLK street (re)naming also requires the examination of additional case studies. I have found a number of viable future study sites in conducting my survey o f city and county governments in Georgia and from conducting extensive online searches of newspapers across the country. For example, in Dayton, Texas the issue of MLK street (re)naming has been put on the ballot twice, with citizens voting it down on both occasions {Houston Chronicle, May 7, 1995, Sec. A, p. 37). It might prove interesting to examine the politics behind the continued consideration, yet rejection, o f King’s memory. The street (re)naming struggle in Warner Robins, Georgia stands out as another excellent site for future work. In Warner Robins, dozens of street (re)naming proposals and counter-proposals have been offered on where King is best commemorated. The issue has exposed and created divisions within both the white and black communities. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the politics of memory at work here. Unable to reach a consensus on which street to name after King, local authorities attempted to honor King by naming a new county building after him. However, because the building was going to house the Department of Family and Children Services, some African-American leaders opposed the naming because of the association it would create between blacks and welfare. Supporters of the proposal, which later included MLK III, pointed out that many of King’s efforts, particularly in the latter part of his career, were directed toward helping the poor and dealing with issues of class as well as race. As suggested by some, what more fitting tribute to King could


225 there be than attaching his name to a place where people will be helped and inequality addressed? To draw from the ideas of Barry Schwartz (1991), the struggle in Warner Robins perhaps illustrates the political tension between two groups seeing and treating the past as a “mirror” of, and “lamp” for, the present. On the one hand. King's commemoration is being reconstructed in light of present social conditions and concerns, namely the concern of African-Americans not to be associated with welfare. In this respect, the final reconstruction of King’s memory reflects or “mirrors” the present. This is quite understandable, considering the ongoing demonization of welfare recipients in popular media and by conservative government officials. On the other hand, the memory of King is not brought into the present without some concern for the past and what King symbolized. In this respect, the present does not solely determine the representation of King but a shared understanding of his past efforts provide a “lamp” or “frame” for understanding how we should commemorate him.


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237 Marist Institute for Public Opinion, December 7,1994, Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights. Available through American Public Opinion Index. Matthews, H. 1995. Living on the Edge: Children as Outsiders. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 86(5): 456-466. McArthur, L.L. 1995. The GNIS and the PC: Two Tools for Today’s Toponymic Research. Names 43(4): 245-254. McDavid, R.I., Jr., O’Cain, R.K., Dorrill, G.T., and Fischer, D. 1985. Names Not on the Map (USA). Names 33(4): 216-224. McNinch, R. I. and Richardson, W. D. 1996. Confederate Symbols and Contemporary Southern Politics. A paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Georgia Political Science Association, Savannah, Georgia, February 22-25, 1996. Minutes o f the Bulloch County Board o f Commissioners. August 18, 1992; December 1, 1992; December 15, 1992; February 1, 1994; June 21,1994; July 5,1994. Minutes o f Regular Council Meeting o f Mayor and Council o f Pelham. Georgia, April 9, 1991. Minutes o f Regular Meeting o f City Commissioners o f Griffin, Georgia. January 24, 1989, March 28,1989. Minutes o f Regular Meeting o f Mayor and City Council o f Statesboro, Georgia. January 22, 1997; May 17,1997. Mitchell, D. 1992. Iconography and Locational Conflict from the Underside: Free Speech, People’s Park and the Politics of Homelessness in Berkeley, California. Political Geography 11: 152-169. Mitchell, D. 1995. The End of Public Space?: People’s Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy. Annals o f the Association ofAmerican Geographers 85(1): 108133. Mitchell, D. 1997. The Annihilation of Space by Law: The Roots and Implications o f Anti-Homeless Laws in the United States. Antipode 29(3): 303-335. Moore, D. W. 1995. Americans’ Most Important Source of Information: Local TV News. The Gallup Poll Monthly 360: 2-8. Morris, A. 1984. The Origins o f the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizingfo r Change. New York: Free Press.


238 Moseley, J. 1997. Interview with author, May 18. City Planner, Statesboro, Georgia. Myers, G.A. 1996. Naming and Placing the Other: Power and the Urban Landscape in Zanzibar. Tijdschrift voor Economische ert Sociale Geografte 87(3): 237-246. New York Times. Another Proposal to Rename a Street Upsets San Franciscans. February 16, 1997, Section 1, p. 21. New York Times [online]. Symbols of Old South Feed a New Bitterness. February 8, 1997, Online. (By Kevin Sack), http://www.nytimes.com/. New York Times. Price Tag on the King Legacy. January 27, 1997, Section A, p. 16. New York Times [online]. School Changes Name From George Washington Because He Owned Slaves. November 12, 1997 (By Kevin Sack), http://www.nytimes.com/. The North Carolina Poll. Spring 1994, School of Journalism, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Omi, M. and Winant, H., ed. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States. New York: Routledge. The Oregonian Poll. February 1990. Available through American Public Opinion Index. Orth, D.J. 1984. Cartotoponymy in the United States of America. Revista Cartografica 46: 131-134. Pelham Journal. Council Approves New Street Name Monument. April 18, 1991, p. 1 & 9. (by Joanne Hand). Phone Disc PowerFinder 1996. Produced by Digital Directory Assistance, Inc. http ://www.PhoneDisc .com. Pinkney, A. 1993. Black Americans. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Potholm, E. D. 1993. Passing the King Holiday in Arizona. Campaigns & Elections 14(4): 26-27. Price, M and Lewis, M. 1993. The Reinvention of Cultural Geography. Annals o f the Association o f American Geographers 83(1): 1-17. Radford, J. P. 1992. Identity and Tradition in the Post-Civil War South. Journal o f Historical Geography 18: 91-103.


239 Reed, J.S. 1976. The Heart of Dixie: An Essay in Folk Geography. Social Forces 54: 925-939. Rhea, J.T. 1997. Race Pride and the American Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rice, U. 1997. Interview with author, September 5. City Councilman and Member of Putnam County NAACP Leadership, Eatonton, Georgia. Rice, U. 1998. Interview with author, March. City Councilman and Member of Putnam County NAACP Leadership, Eatonton, Georgia. Richmond News Leader. Residents Upset Over Road Names. August 22. 1990. Section Plus, p. 1 (by Cay Fultz). Richmond Times-Dispatch Survey. Fall 1983. Available through American Public Opinion Index Riley, M. 1993. Nixing Dixie. Time 142: 30. Roberts, J.T. 1993. Power and Placenames: A Case Study from the Contemporary Amazon Frontier. Names 41(3): 159-181. Rose, G. 1994. The Cultural Politics of Place: Local Representation and Oppositional Discourse in Two Films. Transactions o f the Institute o f British Geographers (New Series) 19: 46-60. Routledge, P. 1992. Putting Politics in Place: Baliapal, India as a Terrain of Resistance. Political Geography 11: 588-611. Ruddick, S. 1996. Constructing Difference in Public Space: Race, Class, and Gender as Interlocking Systems. Urban Geography 17(2): 132-151. Sandage, S. A. 1993. A Marble House Divided: The Lincoln Memorial, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Politics of Memory. Journal o f American History 80(1): 135-167. San Francisco Chronicle. Woman Fights to Save Site of King’s Death. July 14, 1990. Section C, p. 1 (by Leonard Greene). San Francisco Chronicle. Cesar Chavez Street. January 24, 1995. Section A, p. 20. (Editorial)


240 San Francisco Chronicle. Name Change for Army Street. January 10, 1995. Section A. p. 15. (By Clarence Johnson). San Francisco Chronicle. Big Fight Likely on Renaming S.F. Street/Board Asked to Change Fillmore to Goodlett, February 10, 1997. Section A, p. 1 (by Carolyne Zinko). San Francisco Chronicle. Supervisor Withdraws Plan to Rename Fillmore Street / S.F. Still Seeks Way to Honor Goodlett. February 26,1997. Section A, p. 11 (by John King). Savannah Morning News. Statesboro's Street Fight. May 22, 1997. p. 1. Sauer, C. 1952. Agricultural Origins and Dispersal. New York: American Geographical Society. Schudson, M. 1989. The Present in the Past Versus the Past in the Present. Communication 11: 105-113. Schudson. M. 1989. How Culture Works. Theory and Society 18: 153-180. Schwartz, B., Zerubavel, Y., and Barnett, B. 1986. The Recovery of Masada: A Study in Collective Memory. Sociological Quarterly 27: 147-164. Schwartz, B. 1990. The Reconstruction of Abraham Lincoln. In Collective Remembering, ed., D. Middleton and D. Edwards, D. Newbury Park: Sage. Schwartz, B. 1991a. Iconography and Collective Memory: Lincoln's Image in the American Mind. Sociological Quarterly 32: 301-319. Schwartz, B. 1991b. Social Change and Collective Memory: The Democratization of George Washington. American Sociological Review 56: 221-236. Seattle Times. Street’s Name Switch Riles Portland Residents, Fierce Public Backlash to Avenue Named after Martin Luther King, Jr. March 4, 1990. Section D, p. 5. Sibley, D. 1992. Outsiders in Society and Space. In Inventing Places: Studies in Cultural Geography, ed. K. Anderson and F. Gale, pp. 107-122. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Sigelman, L., and Walkosz, B. J. 1992. Letters to the Editor as Public Opinion Thermometer: The Martin Luther King Holiday Vote in Arizona. Social Science Quarterly 73(4): 938-946.


241 Shumake, D. 1997. Interview with author, May 20. City Councilman, Statesboro. Georgia. Simmons, D. 1997. Interview with author, May 21. Member of Bulloch County NAACP Leadership and African-American Activist. Smith, N. 1984. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production o f Space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Smith, N. 1993. Homeless/Global: Scaling Places. In Mapping the Futures: Local Culture, Global Change, ed. J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson, and L. Tucker, pp. 87-119. London: Routledge. Smith, N., and Dennis, W. 1987. The Restructuring of Geographical Scale: Coalescence and Fragmentation of the Northern Core Region. Economic Geography 63: 160182. Smith, S. 1989. Critical Interpretations of Racial Segregation. In The Politics o f Race and Residence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Smith, S. 1993. Bounding the Borders: Claiming Space and Making Place in Rural Scotland. Transactions o f the Institute o f British Geographers (New Series) 18: 291-308. Snipp, M.C. 1996. Understanding race and ethnicity in rural America. Rural Sociology 6(1): 125-142. Soja, E. W. 1985. The Spatiality of Social Life: Towards a Transformative Retheorisation. In Social Relations and Spatial Structures, ed. D. Gregory and J. Urry. New York: St. Martin's Press. f Soja, E. W. 1989. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion o f Space in Critical Social Theory. New York: Verso. Southern Focus Poll. Fall 1996, Institute for Research in Social Science, University o f North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Spence, S.A. 1993. Rural Elderly African Americans and Service Delivery: A Study o f Health and Social Service Needs and Service Accessibility. Journal o f Gerontological Social Work 20(3-4): 187-202. Spirit o f the People: Celebrating 200 Years o f Bulloch County History, 1796-1996. 1996. (edited by Kemp Mabry). Statesboro Publishing Company.


242 Staeheli, L and Thompson, A. 1997. Citizenship, Community, and Struggles for Public Space. Professional Geographer 49(1): 28-38. Statesboro Herald. New Hope Residents Protest Renaming of County Bridge. December 2, 1992, pp. 1&2 (By Vicki A. Smith-Davis). Statesboro Herald. New Commissioners to be Asked to Rename Road. December 16, 1992. p. 8B. (By Larry Anderson). Statesboro Herald. New B.C. Commissioners Oversee Road Name Rematch. January 5, 1993. pp. 1&2 (Claudia Hoffacker). Statesboro Herald. County News. February 3, 1993. p. 3. Statesboro Herald. County Asked to Withdraw Endorsement. March 2. 1994. Section A, p. 11 (Anonymous). Statesboro Herald. Finding the Right Name for the Perimeter Road. March 3. 1994. p. 4 (Editorial). Statesboro Herald. City Could Call in Army to Aid Citywide Cleanup. May 12, 1994. p. 14. (by Joe Hotchkiss). Statesboro Herald. Main Street Makes Request to Council. May 18, 1994. Section A, pp. l& l 1. (by Joe Hotchkiss). Statesboro Herald. Perimeter Road Name Ideas Rolling In. May 20, 1994. pp 1&6 (by Joe Hotchkiss). Statesboro Herald. Recognize Accomplishments of King by Naming Road for Him. May 22, 1994. p. 4. Statesboro Herald. Letters to Editor. May 24, 1994. p. 4. Statesboro Herald. Name Road for Veterans. May 29, 1994. Section A, p. 4. Statesboro Herald. Perimeter Road Naming Deadline Nears. June 6, 1994. pp. 1&8 (by Joe Hotchkiss). Statesboro Herald. City, County to Settle Debate Over Naming Perimeter Road. June 21, 1994. pp. 1 & 3 (by Joe Hotchkiss). Statesboro Herald. City and County Differ on Name o f New Road. June 22, 1994, pp. 1 & 8. (By Joe Hotchkiss).


243 Statesboro Herald. Metter to Rename Street for Martin Luther King, Jr.; Other Activities Planned. January 12,1996. Section Region/State, p. 3. (By Rahn Hutcheson). Statesboro Herald. Alliance Wants Street Named for MLK. January 23, 1997. p. 1. Statesboro Herald. Renaming Northside MLK Jr. Pushed. February 19, 1997. pp. 1&13 (By A1 Hackle). Statesboro Herald. Northside Change Concerns Businesses. February 27, 1997. pp. 1&9 (By David Rogers). Statesboro Herald. Committee Hammers Out Details on MLK Street Naming. April 1, 1997. pp. 1&3 (By Nancy Welch). Statesboro Herald. Women’s Shelter Former Employees Allege Discrimination. April 3, 1997. pp. 1&6 (By Al Hackle). St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Post Office Here is Renamed for Marian Oldham. December 12, 1994. Section C, p. 1. St. Petersburg Times. Group Wants King Street. March 7, 1990. p. 1 (by Craig Pittman). St. Petersburg Times. Safety Harbor Names Street After M.L. King. March 7, 1990. p. 1 (by Craig Pittman). St. Petersburg Times. Controversy Over Renaming Streets Shames Communities. April 22, 1990. p. 2 (editorial). St. Petersburg Times. King’s Fight Still in the Streets: Re-Naming of Roads Incites Controversy. April 23,1990. Section B, p. 1 (by Craig Pittman). St. Petersburg Times. A Sign of Insult or Oversight. June 5, 1993. Section B, p. 1 (by Elijah Gosier). St. Petersburg Times. Where Have All the Heroes Gone? August 10, 1994. P. 1 (by Thomas Hargrove and Guido H. Stempel III). Stewart, G. R. 1970. American Place-Names. New York: Oxford University Press. Stump, R. W. 1988. Toponymic Commemoration of National Figures: The Cases of Kennedy and King. Names 36(3 & 4): 203-216. Suggestions Submitted to Perimeter Naming Committee, Bulloch County, Georgia, April 1 - June I, 1994.


244 Sun Sentinel. Delray to “Auction O ff Germantown Road. November 3. 1988. Section B, p. 1 (by Larry Barszewski). Sun Sentinel. Street-Name Auctions Have Seen Their Day. January 24, 1990. p. 2. Tallahassee Democrat. You Want to Call it What? No Way, Says Ned Cake: He's the Policeman of the Names of City and County Streets. September 12, 1997. Section B, p. 6. Thomas, W. L., Jr., ed. 1956. Man's Role in Changing the Face o f the Earth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Thompson, C. 1995. Inventing our names, ourselves. Commonweal 122(6): 30. Till, K. E. 1995. Berlin's Topographies des Terrors': Fashioning a Place of Memory in the Ruins of the Gestapo Headquarters. In Abstracts, Association o f American Geographers 91st Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers. Times Mirror Survey. January 1988. Available through American Public Opinion Index. Times-Picayune. Controversy Focuses on Rebel Flag: Schools Can Keep Names. July 9, 1993. Section AT, p. 1 (by Pamela Coyle). Times-Picayune. School's Name Changed to Honor Mahalia Jackson. May 12, 1993. Section B, p. 1. (by Lesile Williams). United States Postal Service. 1996 National Five-Digit Zip Code and Post Office Directory. Washington D.C.: United States Postal Service. USA TODAY. King Center Bars Park Ranger Tours. December 29, 1994, Section A, p. 1. USA TODAY. Who Controls King Legacy. January 13-15, 1995. Section A, pp. 1-2. USA TODAY [online]. Whites Protest Naming School King. January 4, 1998 http://www.usatoday.com/. Valentine, G. 1996. Children Should be Seen and Not Heard: The Production and Transgression of Adults’ Public Space. Urban Geography 17(3): 205-220. Vasiliev, I.R. 1995. Mapping names. Names 43(4): 294-306. Wagner, P. L., and Mikesell, M., ed. 1962. Readings in Cultural Geography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


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246 Zerubavel, E. 1996. Social Memories: Steps to a Sociology o f the Past. Qualitative Sociology 19(3): 283-299. Zinsser, W. 1991. “I Realized Her Tears Were Becoming Part of the Memorial.” Smithsonian 22(6): 32-43.


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