A walk down the 6-mile city street named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. yields plenty of images that would surely unsettle the civil rights leader: shuttered storefronts, open-air drug markets and a glut of pawn shops, quickie check-cashing providers and liquor stores.
Melvin White and Andre Blunt on GreentimeTV, sharing the initiatives taken by Beloved Streets of America to revive the streets named after Dr. Martin Luther King.
Later this month, I will join a consortium of well-known St. Louisans in Boston to discuss racial exclusion and ways to build social change in our region. We were invited by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Melvin White walks down an empty Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in St. Louis, Missouri, recounting what once was a business or a home, but is now a rundown shell.
“I can’t tell you what to do about the situation. I’m just an old colored lady. But I can tell you this, I fell in love with Hamilton Avenue, and there’s no place I’d rather be.” —Lovie Haynes
They’ve been languishing for a long time but are finally becoming sites of urban intervention. Many public spaces still bear names and symbols that recall America’s history of racism.
A nationwide effort to revitalize every street named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr is underway. It’s starting right here in Saint Louis. The group has already hit a major setback.
Melvin White’s goals for Beloved Streets of America are about as pie-in-the-sky as they can get: He wants to rebuild the community and economy along one of the most blighted sections of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in St. Louis, starting with the area around the BSA office on the corner of Hamilton Street.
If you happen to be driving along the 8-mile stretch of Martin Luther King Boulevard that begins in Wellston and ends in downtown St. Louis, it wouldn’t take too long to realize that there aren’t a lot of options for purchasing fresh, healthy foods in and around the neighborhood.
If all goes according to plan, a hydroponics factory could soon be located on Martin Luther King Drive. It’s the newest effort by St. Louis nonprofit Beloved Streets of America to revitalize the street.
A walk down the 6-mile city street named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. yields plenty of images that would surely unsettle the civil rights leader: shuttered storefronts, open-air drug markets and a glut of pawn shops, quickie check-cashing providers and liquor stores.
