{"id":19024,"date":"2014-01-21T14:19:06","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T19:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=19024"},"modified":"2025-10-15T11:27:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:27:26","slug":"emu-applauds-success-of-renaming-street-in-honor-of-martin-luther-king-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2014\/emu-applauds-success-of-renaming-street-in-honor-of-martin-luther-king-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"EMU applauds success of renaming street in honor of Martin Luther King Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

As you read Preston Knight’s excellent report on the naming of a major downtown street as Martin Luther King Jr. \u2013 republished here by permission of the Daily News Record<\/em> \u2013 you may be interested to know that EMU participated in that effort, with its campus pastor, Brian Martin Burkholder<\/a>, serving on the task force that successfully urged Harrisonburg\u2019s city council to rename Cantrell Avenue after Martin Luther King Jr. The leader in this renaming effort, Stan Maclin, got to know Burkholder during EMU’s January 2013 cross-city activities of “service and learning” in honor of MLK. Maclin then invited Burkholder to join him on the task force. Now another EMU staffer, Amy Knorr of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding<\/a>, has joined Maclin and Burkholder for ongoing work at racial justice and reconciliation in a group called the MLK Jr. Way Coalition. Remarks by EMU President Loren Swartzendruber<\/a> at the dedication of Martin Luther King Jr. Way follow Knight’s report.<\/h5>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

Stan Maclin, while urging Harrisonburg officials last year to name a street after Martin Luther King Jr., said the \u201ceyes of the nation\u201d were on the Friendly City.<\/p>\n

It may felt like hyperbole, but then Cantrell Avenue was renamed to \u201cMartin Luther King, Jr. Way\u201d and the letters of support began pouring in. They came from mayors in Baltimore and Memphis, from James Madison University graduates living elsewhere and from churches in the Shenandoah Valley.<\/p>\n

\"Participants<\/a>
Participants in MLK activities walk down the street renamed in his honor. (Photo by Jon Styer)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Virginia Democrats, also gave their written support, and The Associated Press made mention of the renaming in a recent story.<\/p>\n

So, Maclin was right then. For several hundred people who heard him speak at an official renaming ceremony Monday, they hope the city resident also is right about the significance of the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s humbling to know that this is not the end,\u201d Maclin said at JMU\u2019s Memorial Hall. \u201cThis is by no means closure. This is much, much more than a [street]. It\u2019s the building of … making this one of the best cities in the United States of America.”<\/p>\n

The city and a group of residents, called the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition, hosted the ceremony, fittingly on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Several speakers highlighted the need to follow \u201cKing\u2019s way\u201d of living, and not just the avenue formerly known as Cantrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can achieve more and have a better life if we value each other and if we work together,\u201d JMU President Jonathan Alger said.<\/p>\n

Cantrell officially assumed its new name on Jan. 1. City Council approved the change in August, about six months after Maclin proposed honoring the slain civil rights leader in Harrisonburg.<\/p>\n

A \u201cpeople\u2019s inspired movement\u201d should get credit for effecting change, he said Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis city is unique and it has something other cities across this country do not have, and that is such a vast array of diversity,\u201d Maclin said.<\/p>\n

Councilman Charles Chenault, 61, a lifelong Harrisonburg resident, said the name change was but a \u201cdown payment\u201d on giving back to those who faced discrimination, particularly elders of Newtown, the city\u2019s Northeast neighborhood and an early settlement for freed slaves.<\/p>\n

That group, he said, includes Doris Allen, 87, a 1945 graduate of what\u2019s now the Lucy F. Simms Continuing Education Center. Although she didn\u2019t mention it while speaking to the crowd on Monday, she has previously talked about living at a time when black women entered Harrisonburg drugstores, the theater and the hospital from the back of the building.<\/p>\n

A year ago today, which was Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2013, Allen was celebrating President Barack Obama\u2019s inauguration to a second term as the nation\u2019s first black president.\"We<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe may still have a long way to go, but we\u2019ve come a long, long way,\u201d she said last year.<\/p>\n

The street renaming would seem to bring Harrisonburg and, as Maclin correctly stated, the nation along even further.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not an occasion for bragging. It\u2019s not an occasion for lording it over other people. It\u2019s a time for new learning and teaching,\u201d said Fred Gibson, a city resident who befriended King while they studied at Crozer Theological Seminary near Chester, Pa. \u201cMartin\u2019s way is an inclusive way in which no one is left out or behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

Excerpts from President Loren Swartzendruber\u2019s remarks at the Jan. 20 ceremony:<\/h5>\n
I learned from Dr. King and others in my own theological tradition that one cannot separate one\u2019s faith from the call to social justice for everyone in our world. As Menno Simons, for whom my church tradition is named, put it so succinctly,<\/h5>\n
True evangelical faith clothes the naked; it feeds the hungry;\u2028 it comforts the sorrowful; \u2028it shelters the destitute; \u2028it aids and consoles the sad; \u2028it does good to those who do it harm;\u2028 it serves those that harm it;\u2028 it prays for those who persecute it.<\/em><\/h5>\n
Here we gather in a community demonstration of solidarity all too rare in our polarized and divided society. I am proud to lead the first [historically white] university in the Commonwealth of Virginia to enroll students of color. Martin Luther King would have been pleased that my predecessors stood up to the prevailing opposition of their time to such a move. In the context of our current divisions I take great courage from Dr. King and from others who dared to stand tall in the face of conflict.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you read Preston Knight’s excellent report on the naming of a major downtown street as Martin Luther King Jr. \u2013 republished here by permission of the Daily News Record ... read more about EMU applauds success of renaming street in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":19026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5583,5623],"tags":[5809,17236,14741,6069,7249,5727],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-19024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","category-special-programs","tag-brian-martin-burkholder","tag-cjp","tag-day-of-service-and-learning","tag-loren-swartzendruber","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-office-of-the-president"],"yoast_head":"\nEMU applauds success of renaming street in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2014\/emu-applauds-success-of-renaming-street-in-honor-of-martin-luther-king-jr\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EMU applauds success of renaming street in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. - 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