John Shearer: Remembering Chattanooga’s Efforts At Racial Harmony 40 Years Ago With Amnicola Bridge Naming And Ninth Street Renaming

  • Saturday, July 10, 2021
  • John Shearer
Next week marks the 40th anniversary of an event that was quite memorable at the time and came following a lot of contentious discussions possibly never seen inside the historic City Hall in terms of how many weeks the debate lasted.
 
At their regular Tuesday morning meeting on July 14, 1981, before the old City Court building next door was converted into a meeting hall, members of the Chattanooga City Commission in a surprise-but-unanimous move voted to rename Ninth Street. 
 
The historic black business and residential street was to start being called M.L.
King Jr. Boulevard in memory of the noted civil rights leader who had died in 1968. And it was being done at a time when other cities around the country were naming streets or places after him as well.
 
But the decision had not come without a lot of back and forth over the previous few months between elected officials and black and white citizens.   
 
And just a few weeks before that event occurred, the Tennessee state legislature had in a much quicker manner and without much previous public attention voted to name the new bridge over Amnicola Highway in honor of state Rep. C.B. Robinson. He was the first black legislator from Hamilton County since Reconstruction.
 
While they were both done as gestures of goodwill to recognize black achievement and literally and figuratively create better bridges and avenues of harmony among all citizens, the decisions did not come with ease, particularly with the M.L. King Boulevard effort.
 
Serious talk of getting Ninth Street renamed after the slain civil rights leader had begun in the summer of 1980 after some racial disturbances broke out in Chattanooga following acquittals or very light sentences of three men with Klan connections. They had been charged in connection with the shooting and injuring of some women on Ninth Street earlier that year.
 
And some said the idea for the renaming had stretched as far back as 1971, when some racial disturbances took place over black frustrations, incidents I have been trying to document in several stories this summer on the 50th anniversary. The idea for some to honor Dr. King in some way might have even dated back to shortly after Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis.
 
After the plan to rename Ninth Street did not seem to be making headway in 1980, in January 1981, a push was made anew by the Rev. M.T. Billingsley at the City Commission meeting shortly after Dr. King’s birthday anniversary. 
 
The pastor at Tucker Baptist Church and social action chairman of a ministers’ union said that it was appropriate to honor Dr. King. “Once there was a man who dared to dream, who preached and practiced non-violence, who believed that the power of love was stronger than the force of hatred,” he said, according to an article in the Chattanooga Times by Pat Wilcox.
 
At the time, the city was slow to act in part because they wanted to gauge the interest of stakeholders along Ninth Street, and to see what technical or engineering challenges might result in renaming a street. Also, as that area had received some funds for redevelopment, a park in the area was being looked at, and it could also be named in memory of Dr. King.
 
By March 1981, however, the debate really began heating up, with many black leaders continuing to push for it, and the city commissioners weighing the issue while claiming they were having to hear from various sides.
 
Among members of the public and those with a vested interest in the street, Vernon Cox of Chattanooga Federal Savings and Loan said a new street might result in the financial firm having to spend money on new mailing material. 
 
Local developer Tommy Lupton, meanwhile, said he was not prejudiced but thought Ninth Street was blossoming into a major new business street, at least in the area near the Read House and the old Union Depot land. He said he was simply wondering how the new name would affect that.
 
He also asked that only East Ninth Street, not West Ninth Street, be renamed.
 
At the time, he was building what would become the Tallan Building next to the Krystal Building alongside the street.
 
Later in March, some supporters of the renaming move, including Johnny Holloway of Operation PUSH, placed some bumper stickers with the King street name on the Ninth Street signs. 
 
At the City Commission meeting on April 7, Commissioner John Franklin – the lone black commissioner in the form of government that was then elected citywide – had made a motion to rename the entire street after Dr. King, but it was not seconded.
 
Instead, the Commission voted to establish a plaza named in Dr. King’s memory, although Mr. Franklin dissented on that vote.
 
However, the black leaders vowed to continue their fight, with NAACP President George Key saying the black community would never accept a plaza as a suitable symbol to honor Dr. King, according to a story by Dave Flessner, who still works for the Times Free Press 40 years later.
 
As that was happening amid a city in debate, almost out of nowhere state Rep. Bob Davis, a Democrat from Chattanooga, introduced on April 8 – the day after the City Commission rejection -- legislation to rename the new Amnicola Highway bridge after Rep. C.B. Robinson.
 
Rep. Robinson, who by all accounts was liked and respected by virtually everyone, had served in the state legislature since being elected in 1974 after an education career that included being principal at Howard. 
 
And Rep. Davis, a white man, said the move had come not due to the City Commission’s rejection of the street renaming, but simply because he felt Rep. Robinson was worthy of the honor.
 
And the state House later that month voted 95-0 to name it in honor of Rep. Robinson.
 
The state-funded bridge, which had its approach span over Amnicola Highway collapse on Feb. 22, 1980, during construction, was dedicated and opened on May 22, 1981, with Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander on hand.
 
The 70-year-old Rep. Robinson, who others described as a builder of bridges of the proverbial kind, was apparently quite overjoyed with the honor. He said in one article by Ms. Wilcox at the dedication that the bridge stands as a “symbol of love for one another, a symbol of brotherhood, a symbol of the many bridges I have helped build over social chasms and life’s troubled waters.” 
 
He jokingly added that he had the urge to move out on the bridge and live on it now that it was named for him.
 
With the Ninth Street renaming, meanwhile, no easy or fun time was being had, and the work toward an agreement was still under construction.
 
Later in April, on the Saturday of Easter weekend, some supporters of the renaming marched again along the street and pasted green Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard stickers over the street signs. The emotional event even included a stirring rendition of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ by Robert Eady, causing one woman to weep openly.
 
At the City Commission meeting on April 28, the Commission again rejected Commissioner Franklin’s move to rename the street. Commissioner Franklin, who had apparently been inspired after the commission’s move to endorse the state House’s action honoring Rep. Robinson, was disappointed.
 
“For the first time in 10 years, I’m almost ashamed to be a member of this commission,” he said.
 
However, Commissioner Franklin had quite an army of supporters, and they were not going quietly into the night. 
 
On June 9, the Rev. Virgil Caldwell of New Monumental Baptist Church and others continued to push for the renaming. 
 
To borrow an old civil rights cry, their feet (or mouths in this case) might have been tired, but their souls were rested.
 
And the black ministers and others soon had another ally – five white local Episcopal church ministers. In reading a statement, the Rev. Robert E. Wood of Church of the Good Shepherd on Lookout Mountain said at the June 23 Commission meeting, “We would lay before you the urgent need of black Chattanoogans to know that they are being taken seriously as citizens of this community.”
 
And then, at the City Commission meeting on July 14, the unthinkable and unexpected happened. Public Works Commissioner Paul Clark, who had shown no sign of being for the move, suddenly had a change of heart and made a push for the renaming.
 
In one of the more emotional moments in city government history, Commissioner Clark said, “If John (Franklin) is still in the notion to make the motion, I will give him a second.”
 
And what followed was a unanimous vote to rename the street entirely from Riverfront Parkway to Central Avenue, although both names and signs would be used for the next six months as the transition was made.
 
After the meeting, Commissioner Clark – a wounded veteran of World War II – said, “If this is one of the things that can bring the community together, Lord help us all.”
 
The next day, despite receiving some negative messages from anonymous callers and some praises from pro-renaming supporters, Commissioner Clark said he did not regret his effort. He said that he hoped the move would make Chattanooga a more cooperative and harmonious community.
 
And with that, Ninth Street had a new name: M.L. King Jr. Boulevard. And many were hoping along with Commissioner Clark that the city was going to have a collective new attitude toward racial wholeness as well.
 
*  *  *
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net
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