"People had discussed North, Center and a lot of other streets, but it became evident in 1983, that the majority wanted 3rd Street," Roberts said. During the Juneteenth celebration in 1983, the group circulated a petition to rename a city street in honor of King. Pitts came in third in the primary, but the Young Milwaukeeans kept registering voters and pushing for new initiatives. Pitts, a boxer turned lawyer, was the first African-American man elected to the Milwaukee Common Council. Roberts, a founding member of the Young Milwaukeeans, campaigned with the group for Orville Pitts when he ran for Congress. Ronald Roberts remembers how he felt when he first realized the power of young people voting. "I hope we can learn from this." 3rd Street was 'the Black community's downtown' "This is another example of a story of young Black people doing something really positive and nobody remembering it," Jackson said. In order to move forward, it's critical to examine the past, said Reggie Jackson, a local historian, writer and co-founder of Nurturing Diversity Partners. “But then we do have the opportunity to work with intention together to correct some of those things.”
“It’s a culmination of a lot of hard work, research, collaboration and collective work, and a realization of the fact that there may have been things historically that we didn’t get right as a city,” Coggs said. This time, it received unanimous support from the Common Council. Milele Coggs introduced legislation to rename the rest of the street. In 2021, following the national racial justice reckoning after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Ald. The original debate to rename the street was marked by politically fighting, racial division and a split between residents in neighborhoods and business interests downtown. “For it to be all-inclusive and be extended … it’s all together and a symbol of unity.” “There’s so much division and that street is kind of like a symbol of that division,” she said. Marlene Johnson-Odom, pushed for a complete renaming.
“It’s so important that it’s happening now,” said Jan Johnson Carlyle, whose late mother, the long-serving Ald. Drive.Ī compromise in 1984 led to 3rd Street being renamed in honor of King from McKinley Avenue north and being called Old World North 3rd Street from McKinley Avenue south. On Monday, the last few blocks of what was 3rd Street downtown will be renamed Dr.
Nearly 40 years ago, more than 16,000 Milwaukee residents signed a petition to honor a civil rights icon with a street named for him. Watch Video: King: Business along King Drive
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