KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, leaders once again will look into renaming city streets in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The city's Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners will take up the issue at its meeting Tuesday.
"We've taken too long to do this in Kansas City," Chris Goode, a parks and recreation commissioner, said.
A stretch of road that includes Blue and Swope parkways, as well as Volker Boulevard, would be named "as one conglomerate thoroughfare" in King's honor, according to Goode.
City documents state that the renaming would include "a major compilation of thoroughfares made up of Blue Parkway from Elmwood Avenue to Swope Parkway, Swope Parkway from Blue Parkway to Volker, and Volker from Swope Parkway to Brookside Boulevard."
Goode said that honoring King in Kansas City, Missouri, is "long overdue."
"To honor Dr. King is to honor everyone," Goode said, "because he is somebody that stood for everyone."
The City Council voted in January 2019 to change The Paseo Boulevard to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. But that November, voters decided to reverse the change.
RELATED: The history of The Paseo and why some neighbors are against changing the name
"We, in the spirit of Dr. King, didn't give up," Dr. Vernon Percy Howard Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City, said.
The SCLCGKC kept fighting for a way to honor the civil rights icon. They are asking for these specific streets to be renamed.
"Find ways that we can advocate for peace and justice in the beloved community," Howard said.
Goode and the board will discuss the possible name change at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Kansas City Parks Administration building, 4600 East 63rd Street Trafficway.
