S.D. Port Skirts Naming Center for Dr. King

In a surprise move, the San Diego Unified Port District commissioners refused Tuesday to vote on renaming the new, $160-million bayside convention center after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., choosing instead to turn the center’s terrace into an “Avenue of Honors” whose first inductee would be King.

The controversial name-change issue now returns to the San Diego City Council, which has already voted in favor of the renaming. If the council reaffirms its decision to rename the center, the matter will again return to the Board of Port Commissioners for its endorsement.

In a similar dispute two years ago, the City Council voted to rename Market Street as Martin Luther King Jr. Way. That decision was overturned by voters after petitioners gathered sufficient signatures to force a referendum.

Pre-Vote Support

Before Tuesday’s meeting, it appeared that a majority of the seven-member Port board--political appointees of the city councils of the five cities that ring San Diego Bay--would vote for changing the San Diego Convention Center name to the San Diego Martin Luther King Convention Center.

San Diego’s three appointees and the representative from National City had said they would follow the wishes of their city councils and vote for placing King’s name on the landmark edifice, which is to open later this year.

But the issue never came to a vote, and, when the proposal was made on establishing the Avenue of Honors, the political balance changed when one of San Diego’s commissioners, Dan Larsen, bolted. He was the swing vote on the proposal, made by Chula Vista’s representative, Robert Penner.

Afterward, Larsen maintained that he hadn’t changed his mind but said that the proposal was something new and that the City Council “deserved the opportunity to take a look” at it. “I like Dr. Penner’s idea . . . it’s an excellent way to do it. Perhaps if they had this opportunity, they would have gone this way,” Larsen said just before the vote.

Joining Larsen and Penner in support of the new proposal were Raymond Burk of Coronado and Milford Portwood of Imperial Beach. Voting in opposition were Louis Wolfsheimer and Bill Rick, both of San Diego, and National City’s representative, Delton Reopelle.

The proposal, which Penner said he drafted during the day, took the audience by surprise. Some people who had testified against the renaming yelled at the commissioners, saying they had “copped out” by not taking a direct stand, and most of the blacks who had turned out for the four-hour meeting quickly left.

But Robert Pruett, the key organizer behind the main opposition group, Citizens to Keep the Name San Diego Convention Center, said his group will abandon its plan to launch a referendum if an “Avenue of Honors” is created.

‘Shows Courage and Wisdom’

“I think this shows courage and wisdom on their part,” he said. “The proposed alternative is admirable.”

Mayor Maureen O’Connor was “disappointed with the port’s vote,” according to her spokesman, Paul Downey. He said the mayor supported the name change and “is disappointed the commissioners didn’t abide by the wishes of seven members of the City Council who voted for the change.”

The mayor will now meet with Councilman Wes Pratt, the council’s sole black member who made the city’s formal presentation to the commissioners, to decide how to respond to the port commissioners’ proposal. Pratt was unavailable for comment Tuesday night.

The Rev. George Stevens, a black community leader supporting the renaming, said he too opposed the commissioners’ decision. “I don’t accept what they did . . . it looks like the decision was already made before we made our presentation,” Smith said. “It was blatant attempt to compromise, but we have compromised enough, that’s why we’re in this position.”

Slyvia M’Lafi Thompson, a cultural affairs officer for the San Diego Community College District, said of the commissioners’ decision:

“They don’t want the center named after Dr. King, that’s the way I interpreted their lack of action. They were unable to take a stand. . . . I don’t accuse everybody of being a racist, but there were two strong issues here: One is racism and the other is ignorance. San Diego is going to have to catch up with the rest of the country.

“Some of us sat there for five hours, expecting them to vote on the issue. Instead, they shocked and disappointed us all.”

Penner said he was seeking to establish a consensus on the sensitive matter of finding a tribute for King, which has embroiled the city in controversy for two years. Under his plan, the Avenue of Honors would be established “with the advice, consent and approval of the City Council of San Diego.”

Emotions ran high many times during the lengthy meeting, which attracted about 350 people to the 460-seat ballroom at the Embarcadero Holiday Inn. At times some of the rhetoric rose to eloquence; at other times, it descended into bigotry and racism, with blacks and whites evoking stereotypes to make their points.

Some said King wasn’t worth remembering, citing FBI allegations that he was a Communist and a dupe for the Soviet Union. Others questioned his marital fidelity. One speaker said King’s followers were looters and suggested that, if the center is renamed, the city consider opening liquor stores around it.

Another pounded the small of his back, telling the commissioners to have “some backbone” and not vote for the renaming, implying they had been “brow-beaten” by blacks “dressed in suits.”

“Every time I hear black leaders get up” and criticize “opponents to any of their ideas. . . . I’m a racist,” said John Kenshalo, one of the more than 150 people to spoke at the meeting. “But, if they continue to call me a racist, I’m almost there.”

“They’ve drilled Martin Luther King into the ground. I’m tired of reading about it, and I’m tired of talking about it,” he said.

One black speaker said that whites are afraid of blacks, and told the commissioners, all of whom are white, that they should be afraid of black males because “if we ever get some power, we will take revenge. San Diego is not the finest city in America, but the finest racist city in America.”

A black woman, shouting into the microphone, said that most serial killers in the United States are white.

After listening to bigoted testimony of some opponents to the renaming, all of whom were white and many of whom were elderly, Thompson, the community college cultural affairs officer, told the audience: “I’ve sat for . . . hours,” he said, “listening to some of the saddest, sickest” statements he ever heard . . . “I’m ashamed . . . and glad there are no children” in the audience.

Most of those in favor of the renaming--who were white as well as black, and represented a cross-section of groups and organizations including Jews, Catholics, Baptists and other religious groups, environmental representatives and school districts--spoke about the symbolism of honoring King. They said he was a champion for the human rights of all people, regardless of color. Councilman Pratt said the name change would be a statement for “Martin Luther King’s ideals of respect, human dignity and brotherhood.”

John Ringgold, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, said naming the center for King was “the right thing to do . . . the moral thing to do.”

Needed as a Symbol

“The black community needs a significant” landmark, he said, saying that black children in particular need such a symbol.

But some of those opposed questioned whether the proper tribute was changing the name of the center, saying instead that the city should find alternatives, such as creating scholarships or naming the proposed new City Hall and central library after King. “What we would be doing is gilding the lily,” Dr. Georgia Mills said.

Pruett, leader of the main opposition group, presented the commissioners with petitions bearing the signatures of 4,769 people against the renaming.

He said that, if the commissioners vote for the name change, “there will be a referendum . . . that isn’t a threat, that’s a promise.”

“We will speak clearly and we will speak loudly,” he said.

Stevens warned the commissioners that, if the center is not named after King, he will launch a “Tell a Friend” campaign, a grass-roots, word-of-mouth effort telling people not to visit or bring conventions to the city.

Some commissioners, such as Portwood, said they were dismayed by the vitriol.

Commissioner Rick noted that he has attended nearly 100 conventions over the last several years, and that the names of all those convention centers had quickly faded from memory.

“I’ve traveled Rosecrans all my life,” he said of the street in Point Loma, “and I doubt the general (Rosecrans) ever came here,” referring to those who oppose the King renaming because King never visited San Diego. But the King name change is “important because of its symbolism,” he said.

“If there is something more important than smoothing racial equalities, I can’t think of it.”