In my previous post, I asked how the memorialization of racial injustice and the civil rights movement in American can be understood. This story appeared at the right time: a community in Florida has repealled the name change of a street that had been renamed to honor Martin Luther King jr.

Every city in America should have a "Martin Luther King Street" just as they should have Lincoln and Washington Streets. Their are few men who had such a positive impact on the political development of this country. I remember that a divisive debate took place in LA when the city council renamed a street in honor of MLK, althought most of the protesters were those who lived on or near it.

In the town of Zephyrhills, the issue has become divisive as well: "In my opinion, it's just pure evil that has come to the citizens of this town. I know people who have known each other 20 years who won't speak to each other anymore." The reason for opposition to the name is contested. Some cry racism, others name practicalities and ideological differences. One man, " who lives on Sixth Avenue, said he opposed renaming the street because of King's opposition to the Vietnam War[:] 'I don't consider Martin Luther King to be an icon or a hero to be looked up to'" (emphasis mine). Opposition to the memorialization on the basis of a single issue, one on which King had little direct effect, is trite. His opposition to the war was a minor facet of his life's work; his impact on the war was infinitessimal.

But in America it is easier to remember the Holocaust than it is racial injustice: no space has been made on the Mall for an African-American Museum as has for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (althought the interests of the USHMM have expanded to other genocides).

(To counter what I previously wrote, I would not that the desire to canonize Uncle Tom's Cabin has been stronger than the desire for Nigth over at Perfidy.)