The growing number of memorials and commemorations dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, has impacted the United States landscape, and is often a subject that is highly contentious and almost always yields passionate discussions between civil rights leaders themselves, community members, and in the worst cases hate groups. A common mode of commemoration today is the naming and renaming streets for Dr. King and other heroes from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. To traverse the landscape of the United States, you must use road signs as directional signifiers; however location is not the only thing a street name signifies. A street’s name does more than direct your way, it portrays cultural value and meaning, representing social, political, and economic capital (Azarayahu, 1997). Today, in over forty states, there are approximately nine-hundred streets, avenues and boulevards named for King (Mann 2010). The realistic utility of naming and renaming streets after King in order to close the gap between whites and blacks of differing socioeconomic groups, both politically and symbolically is debatable. Proponents for naming or renaming a road in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. argue that by instilling this civil rights icon into government sanctioned landscape will help bring political equality into the racialized landscapes of public memory. The roadway chosen however should not be limited in size, prominence, or racial identity of residents, the roadway should span diverse neighborhoods and be seen as a place where people come together. Some opponents to renaming a street for Dr. King argue that on top of the cost of changing one’s address, the King namesake when associate with a roadway may reduce housing values, their businesses may lose revenue, their neighborhoods will become less safe, or even just the public’s simple perception of this, even if it is not true, would cause these economic and social losses to occur. This has not been proven.
This blog is to serve as an online forum where street naming and renaming for civil rights leaders can be addressed is well-placed in the present restorative justice movement and could positively impact the civil rights landscapes and public memory. “Restorative justice is transformative…creates conditions for pursuing forms of personal and, perhaps more importantly, social change. (Woolford, 2009, pp. 16-17)” This online forum will work to be a transformative space where activist, community members, and scholars can share ideas and strategies for redefining the landscape of public memory. This blog will also attempt to help civil rights activist today, who are trying to have streets named or renamed for civil rights leaders by giving them a place to share resources, discuss current issues, and plan activities.
Nancy Fraser in her book Scales of Justice, asserts that one of the main problems with justice in the United States, today, is that the how, what, and who of justice are being misframed (Fraser, 2009). Justice is not something to be achieved, rather it is a process; in which, ideally, there is no single frame for reasoning, rather, there would be multiple frames, working at various scales (Fraser, 2009). This blog will be a space where social injustices regarding politically driven struggles over the landscape, can be framed and reframed as need and the scale can be determined by the individual users, depending on their participation in themed discussion boards, reaching both local and transnational actors.
One of Fraser’s objective is to outline a new type of justice and in doing so she proposes using a critical approach to craft a future meta-democracy (Fraser, 2009). A democracy that has a structure and an accountability mechanism, both of which are reflexively created and maintained (Fraser, 2009). Though this blog will not be a new meta-democracy it will attempt to use similar reflexive principles in its creating and maintenance. To do this I invite input on how to positively add to or alter this space to make it more useful and informative.
This blog hosts a variety of resources. Firstly, the news feed is constantly updating with news related to street renaming and Dr. Martin Luther King. Secondly, the blog hosts an archive of related scholarly research articles. These articles include topics such as street naming and renaming, politicized landscapes, related case studies, as well as topics slightly removed from the struggle such as, social justice and applied restorative justice; though the latter does not directly relate these articles theory is of value. Thirdly, there is an extensive list of external links to websites, resources, and related videos. Finally, there is a pdf link for an MLK Street Naming Educational Pamphlet from 2005. In the future, I hope to work with current activist to create an updated pamphlet, please contact me if this is something you would like to participate in. Hopefully, this blog’s resources will be supplementary materials for the discussions that will be hosted and the activities that will be organized.
While thinking about organizing, I recall Fraser’s aim attempt to address the question: Who is entitled to justice? She does this by suggesting that the concept of the public sphere be expanded to include transnational actors, so that all those who are subjected to a particular injustice can be included in the process (Fraser, 2009). A key element in the advancement of restorative social justice is communication between all those subjected to injustices. By using this blog platform, its online nature, alone, makes it available to local and transnational actors. In my aim to create a transformative space I understand that simply providing static resources is not enough, there need to be spaces available for public comment and discussion, thus I have enabled comments without moderation. This blog will aim to provide a transformative and reflexive space where groups and/or individuals of intellectuals, activists, organizers, and community members can come to communicate and learn.
In a future series of posts I will chronicle the highlights of my efforts to measure the socioeconomic characteristics and levels of residential segregation within census areas that intersect or lie adjacent to all streets named for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Recognizing that the stereotypical images surround streets given King’s namesakes, I intend determine if MLK streets are more racially segregated and poorer than other census areas. Documenting these empirical patterns not only informs public perception of a major commemorative trend, but also assists in identifying geographic areas in need of community development assistance. A few of the specific research questions I hope to address include: 1) How do the racial characteristics of areas surrounding Martin Luther King Jr. Streets correspond to the area immediately surrounding the street itself? Do census areas directly neighboring the street have higher levels of segregation than census areas farther away from the street in terms of distance? In addition, are the racial characteristics of MLK street census areas significantly different from the racial/ethnic characteristics of their larger, respective cities? 2) What is the level of racial segregation in census areas that intersect or lie adjacent to streets named for Martin Luther King Jr.? Do streets named for Martin Luther King Jr. appear in areas of high segregation clustering for the respective city as a whole? 3) What spatial variation do we see by city, state, and region in terms of levels of segregation found in census areas that intersect or lie adjacent to streets named for Martin Luther King, Jr. What particular, cities, states, and regions in the U.S. appear to have named streets that display greater or lesser degrees racial segregation, relative to segregation in their respective cities? This future research will help civil rights activist today, who are trying to have streets named or renamed for civil rights leaders by giving them the ability to show quantitatively that streets named for Martin Luther King Jr. cannot be reduced to the stereotype that the general public and opponents attribute to them. This research in addition to the previously described blog will also help to identify streets named for MLK that exhibit intense segregation or poverty, which will allow community development groups, such as Beloved Streets, to develop strategies for addressing these patterns rather than simply casting aspersions on these areas.
While using a critical theorist approach to this blog project and my larger research project I will be able to assist in changing the discussion of justice because I will be attempting to assist in changing the way the public remembers MLK’s legacy and by extension the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Though this is a stretch, if the public had a better image of streets named for black civil rights leaders maybe they would have a different image of black people in general. Cacho submits that criminal activity is not identifiable without a black-body, that people of color are permanently criminalized, based on stereotypes associated with their race (Cacho, 2012). Perhaps if MLK streets were no longer associated with criminal activity then that would work toward the black-body be becoming disassociated as well. By building this blog and hosting discussions I hope to gain and share knowledge and insight about social justice struggles and theory associated with streets named or re-named for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. From there I will step back and rethink about what I have come to know so that I can determined why and how I came to those conclusions, in an attempt to make myself as reflexive as the blog.
To rethink justices we must also rethink about the way our landscape affects the public’s collective memory. If segregated and impoverished streets named for MLK were to be identified (via related research) and publicized (via the blog and publication) activist organizations can attempt to positively redefine the public’s memory regarding Civil Rights landscape and by extension current and future civil rights issues (hopefully). My main objective in applying a critical theorist approach to the create a social justice blog that will disclose and improve upon the social injustices effecting the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as it relates to street naming. By extension I also hope this blog will assist the communities where these MLK streets exist to improve the public memory associated with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the black-body.
Bibliography
Azarayahu, M. (1997). German Reunification and the Politics of Street Names: The Case of East Berlin. Political Geography, 16(6), 479-493.
Cacho, L. M. (2012). Social Death: Racialized Rightness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected. New York & London: New York University Press.
Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World. (A. Allen, Ed.) New York: Columbia Univeristy Press.
Mirzoeff, N. (2012). Why I Occupy. Public Culture, 24(3), 451-456.
Woolford, A. (2009). The Politics of Restorative Justice: A Critical Introduction. (T. Seel, Ed.) Halifax & Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.
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