Kansas City, Missouri, voted during Tuesday's election to remove Martin Luther King Jr.'s name from a 10-mile street, according to the HuffPost.
The vote came nearly a year after the city decided to finally dedicate a street in honor of the civil rights icon. Kansas City previously was one of the only major cities without a street named after the reverend.
“Shameful day for Kansas City,” said Rev. Dr. Vernon P. Howard Jr., president of the city's chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization founded by Dr. King.
Howard added the vote “set us decades back in the march toward racial justice and racial inclusion.”
The street, which was previously named Paseo Boulevard, will return to its original name. According to the New York Times, 65% of voters moved to remove King's name.
The local chapter of SCLC started a petition last year to get a ballot allowing voters to decide on naming the street after King, however, the city council voted 8-4, approving the change.
Alissia Canady, a Black former city councilwoman who opposed naming the street after King, said they are not against dedicating a street after him — just not Paseo Boulevard.
Canady said most of the residents in her former district also disapproved of naming the street after the leader.
A group named Save the Paseo started a petition early in the year to get the decision added to Tuesday's ballot, according to USA Today.
Howard and other city leaders accused white residents of spearheading the opposition.
“This is white-led, trying to dictate to the African American community who it honors, where they’re honored, how they’re honored,” he said. “We believe that is systemic and structural racism.”
However, according to the New York Times, many Black residents joined the group. Howard acknowledged the presence of Black neighbors in the organization but said it was far from a Black movement.
“Certainly there are segments of the African American community who are less concerned about issues of racial justice,” he said.
Paseo Boulevard is named after Paseo de la Reforma, a grand thoroughfare in Mexico City, and is synonymous with Black achievement in the city.
In the 1900s, the street was filled with successful Black families during a time of segregation in the city.
“There is pride of having a home along the Paseo,” Canady said.
Supporters of dedicating the street after King said the decision is purely common sense, given the history of the boulevard.
The New York Times reported that streets named after King are predominately in low-income Black neighborhoods. A professor at the University of Tennesee documented at least 955 streets named in his honor.
