Speaking of naming things after Dr. King, MLK Way was also an ordeal

While not as arduous, or at least as drawn-out, as renaming the county, renaming Empire Way to Martin Luther King Jr. Way in the early 1980s was also tied up in bureaucracy, anti-progressives, and ~*~taxpayer dollars~*~.

It started with local activist Eddie Rye, Jr. circulating a petition to rename the street in early 1981. After gathering over 4,000 signatures, the idea gained traction. The City Council, and then-mayor Charlie Royer, approved the change in July 1982, designating money from the emergency fund to pay for it.

As is the case whenever someone proposes changing anything, some people were not happy. Most notably, the Empire Way Merchants Association banded together and attempted to block name change, even suing the city – and activists rightfully retaliated, calling for a boycott of the businesses resisting. An August 19 Seattle Times report quoted one unsigned flyer (emphasis added): “The businesses listed below are opposed to renaming Empire Way to Martin Luther King Jr. Way. By doing so, these business owners have shown a lack of respect to its multiracial neighbors. Don’t shop where you can’t get R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”

Those business owners, as those blocking progress often do, resisted that characterization. “It’s not a totally white group, walking down the street with KKK signs,” that same report quoted one such business owner, Don Heider.

The crux of the suit was more procedural in nature: Because the Council had added an emergency clause to the ordinance so they could use money from the emergency fund to pay for it, the Merchants Association claimed the change took place too quickly and without a public vote. This, they claimed, forced them to update their stationery, ads, and window signs “at considerable cost,” said Heider in an August 10, 1982 Seattle Times piece.

Seattle Times Letters section was also full of folks ham-and-mayonnaisin’ over how “better” to “honor” Dr. King’s memory. One popular option? Name a bridge instead. Another? KINGDOME IS NOW MARTINLUTHERKINGDOME. Seriously. These are from the Seattle Times Letters section:

July 1, 1982:

May 20, 1982:

October 3, 1982: 

That “(Kingdome for short)” aside in the last letter highlights just how much opponents actually wanted to brush a MLK tribute under the rug – to make it, effectively, invisible. Because the best way to honor someone’s memory is to name something after them in a way that NOBODY WILL NOTICE. Great idea. Another letter from October 1982 pointed out this fallacy: “The idea of the Kingdome being called the Martin Luther King Jr. Dome (Kingdome for short) seems particularly unsuitable […] People [would] be unaware of what the real name was.”

Mayor Royer and the City Council stuck to their guns, and the Merchants Association’s suit was tossed out in King County Superior Court in August 1982. But the suit made it all the way to the State Supreme Court, delaying the actual sign changes – as with King County’s branding, the visibility of the change was delayed. In November 1983, although the street had been renamed in July 1982, the street names still read Empire Way. Citing frustration with the Mayor and the Council’s sluggish pace, a group of citizens calling themselves the August 27th Committee for Jobs-Peace-Freedom went out one rainy day armed with street sign-shaped stickers, manually changing all Empire Way signs to read “Martin Luther King Jr.” Among the group of activists was then-activist, now-King County Council member Larry Gossett, according to a November 20, 1983 Times piece.

The City-printed signs would begin being installed soon after, on December 1, after the State Supreme Court ruled in the City’s favor. Despite the frenzy of opposition, the  Times from the next day reported that “drivers honked their horns and raised salutes” as they drove past the new sign.

Council member Gossett spoke at the dedication ceremony – which took place on January 14, 1984, the eve of what would have been Dr. King’s 55th birthday – for the final sign at E Cherry St. “We must take this opportunity to dedicate ourselves to the struggle for human rights,” he said, then speaking as the director of the Central Area Motivation Program.

The Times reported the next day that “there was no sign of opposition.” Finally. The Kingdome was demolished in March 2000; the name Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, on the other hand, stuck.