Civil rights group opposes renaming Detroit’s Hart Plaza after Martin Luther King Jr.
The riverfront park is named after a senator who championed the Civil Rights Act
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A civil rights group is urging Detroit City Council to vote against a bid to change the name of Hart Plaza along the waterfront in downtown.
The council plans to vote in September on a proposal to rename the waterfront park to “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza.”
The name change is a nod to the civil rights icon debuting a version of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at nearby Cobo Hall after his historic Walk to Freedom down Woodward Avenue on June 1963.
Since opening in 1975, the plaza has been named after the late U.S. Sen. Philip Hart, a white Democrat who was a leading advocate for the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and other anti-racism measures. Hart was once dubbed the “conscience of the Senate.”
The Detroit chapter of the National Action Network, a civil rights organization headed by Rev. Al Sharpton, is “diametrically opposed” to renaming the 14-acre plaza, said Sam Riddle, political director of the group.
“The very fact that there is even a proposal to remove Hart’s name from Hart Plaza is an indictment of the failure to teach history that is so vital to hold this nation together during times when even the ultimate American abomination — slavery — is minimized,” Riddle told the city council during a public comment period Tuesday. “There is no American city better than Detroit to have and maintain a Hart Plaza.”
Councilwoman Mary Waters introduced the resolution to rename the plaza.
The council did not discuss the proposal during Tuesday’s meeting. The Neighborhood and Community Services Standing Committee plans to take up the name change on Thursday.
To commemorate the 60th anniversary of King’s speech, the city unveiled a statue of the civil right leader at a podium in June.
Correction: An earlier version of this misstated where King debuted a version of his “I Have a Dream” speech. It was at Cobo Hall, not Hart Plaza.
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