SAN DIEGO PERSPECTIVE : It’s Time to Heal Wounds

Perhaps the timing of the latest Martin Luther King Jr. memorial plan is fortuitous.

This week the nation celebrated the civil rights leader’s birth, and today the city’s redevelopment agency board will consider naming a new downtown park for the Nobel Prize winner.

It will be the fourth major attempt to establish a memorial in five years. First was the idea of naming Euclid Avenue-54th Street for King. The City Council rejected that and decided instead to rename Market Street. But in an emotional referendum, the voters overturned that decision. Then the San Diego Unified Port District rejected a proposal, developed by a citizens committee, to name the Convention Center for King.

Meanwhile, San Diego has grown from the nation’s seventh-largest city to the sixth, yet it still has no major public tribute to King, except California 94, which virtually no one refers to by King’s name.

That could be corrected if the Centre City Development Corp. board and the San Diego City Council both approve this latest plan.

The proposal has much to recommend it.

The 12-acre linear park along Harbor Drive from 6th Avenue to Seaport Village will be the first park downtown that the city has developed since the turn of the century (although the Port District has developed some.)

The park will have jogging and bike paths, fountains and benches, and it’s directly across from the Convention Center, making it highly visible to residents and visitors.

The park also has not had another formal name. So naming it for King cannot violate tradition.

Our only reservation is that CCDC is proposing using only King’s last name. The park would be called King Promenade instead of Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade. The argument, a weak one, is that King’s full name makes it sound too much like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park in Southeast San Diego.

The basic proposal is a good one. The council and the CCDC board should approve it without diluting it.