California 94 : Renaming of Freeway for Dr. King Approved

Resolving an issue that San Diego civic leaders couldn’t, the state Legislature passed a resolution Tuesday renaming California 94 for slain civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The resolution, sponsored by state Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh (D-Bonita) and passed by the Assembly Tuesday on a voice vote, designates the stretch of road from Interstate 5 downtown to the interchange of California 125 in La Mesa as Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway.

However, the resolution provides that private donations--and not state money--will be used to pay for new signs with King’s name. Deddeh said the total cost for the signs, which will be posted along the entrance and exit ramps of the freeway, will be $7,000 to $15,000.

Deddeh said renaming the freeway was an idea whose “time had come” after nearly two years of racially and politically divisive debate in the state’s second largest city over how to honor King.

‘Nice Gesture’

“I think renaming the major thoroughfare that goes from La Mesa to downtown San Diego would be a nice gesture because this freeway goes through the territories of ethnic minorities--of white folks, black folks, of people who would always be reminded that he stood for peace and brotherhood,” Deddeh said.

But renaming the freeway for King has been one of the least favorite choices of San Diego’s black community, which has been angered and frustrated over the past several years in its quest to find a public memorial to the civil rights leader.

In April, 1986, the San Diego City Council brushed aside a suggestion to rename the freeway and voted instead to designate Market Street as Martin Luther King Way. Its rationale was that the main thoroughfare was highly visible and cut across many city neighborhoods, symbolizing King’s universal appeal.

Yet the black community was angered in November, 1987, when San Diego voters overturned that decision, rescinding the King name and restoring Market Street. San Diego civic leaders, led by members of the Chamber of Commerce, worked with black leaders to find a suitable replacement.

Private Effort

The private effort finally settled on a scholarship fund and King statue to be built in Balboa Park, but fund raising for the $750,000 goal has stalled at about $150,000, civic leaders said recently.

Meanwhile, the San Diego City Council revived the politically and racially divisive issue on its own by calling on the Board of Port Commissioners to name the new waterfront convention center for King.

The move seemed all but certain because the city’s three appointees on the seven-member, plus National City’s representative, had said they would vote for the name change.

But Commissioner Dan Larsen of Point Loma changed his mind and switched his vote, and the port board, prodded to take a stand by Mayor Maureen O’Connor, decided July 26 to leave King’s name off the convention center. The vote was 4 to 3.

It was after that vote that Deddeh and Assemblyman Pete Chacon (D-San Diego) announced they would pursue the legislative resolution, which was introduced immediately after legislators came back to town Aug. 21 after a summer break.

In asking for a vote of approval from his colleagues, Chacon told fellow Assembly members that the efforts to name the convention center for King were derailed by a “vocal minority” and that the “Port District paid too much attention to them.”

Deddeh said Tuesday that he and the Rev. George McKinney of the St. Stephen’s Church of God would head up the private fund-raising drive to collect the money for the new King freeway signs.