What Price Honor?

In the overall scheme of things, the name of a convention center is not worth much. But honoring one’s word is--something that San Diego Unified Port District Commissioner Daniel Larsen seemed to forget when he voted to reject the City Council’s request to name the new convention center for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. With his vote, Larsen reneged on a public promise he had made to support the tribute.

Now, for many San Diegans, the center meant to be a symbol of civic pride will be a symbol of racial prejudice, a bitter reminder that their hometown will rally harder against a black hero than for one.

That happened when the City Council named Market Street for the slain civil-rights leader and opponents gathered 79,175 signatures to ask the voters to overrule the council. It happened again after the Market Street vote, when a citizens’ advisory panel went out into the community to solicit input for a new tribute and was mostly greeted with apathy. Even the private-tribute committee formed by the Chamber of Commerce has had difficulty rallying enough financial support for its plan for scholarships and a statue to King. It has been able to raise only $150,000 of its $750,000 goal.

But opponents of naming the convention center for the Nobel Peace Prize winner had no difficulty gathering support for their cause. Larsen said he had an avalanche of letters and calls in favor of keeping the generic name, San Diego Convention Center.

One has to wonder what kind of reaction there will be to state Sen. Pete Chacon’s proposal to name a portion of California 94 through Southeast San Diego for King. In a city where freeways are known more by numbers than names, such a tribute is fairly bland.

But the prospect of the City Council proposing anything much more significant than that right now seems too much to expect. For that would require an unusual display of political will, and, if one thing has become clear, it is that San Diego’s leaders don’t share the indomitable spirit of artist Eddie Edwards, who is painting a two-story mural of King at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School as part of the school arts program funded by Muriel Gluck.

“We don’t have a lot of heroes in the community,” Edwards said recently, “but if people don’t give you your monuments and statues, you have to make your own.”