MLK Saga Longer Than Proposed Streets

High Point Mayor Bernita Sims' proposal to name a High Point street for Martin Luther King Jr. may be, as Sims said on Tuesday, Jan. 29, "an issue whose time has come." But it's also an issue with a long and tangled history in High Point.

Sims suggested naming a street after the civil rights leader at a Thursday, Jan. 10 High Point City Council work session, saying, "All of the communities that surround us have streets that are named after Dr. King ... I don't know why we are discussing this in 2013."

The City Council is discussing the issue in 2013 because at least five efforts to name a street after King have failed in High Point – in 1991, 1992, 1993, 2001 and 2002. The closest proponents have come was a partial victory on a sixth occasion, in 1994, when East Kivett Drive was given an honorary designation as Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Drive, but not renamed.

Sims on Jan. 10 said she had Kivett Drive in mind to rename for King. Councilmember Becky Smothers said she would support renaming for King the stretch of Kivett Drive between Business 85 and Centennial Street.

Sims said this week she would bring the issue up at a City Council work session within a few weeks. The City Council does not have a work session on Thursday, Jan. 31, so the issue will probably be brought up at the Thursday, Feb. 7 work session.

In the meantime, city staff has been scrambling to detangle the long history of unsuccessful efforts to name a street after King, and to determine to what degree the name "Kivett Drive" has historical significance. Sims said she would not limit her proposal to Kivett Drive – "No, I'll take Main Street," was how she put it – but as most of the staff research is being done on Kivett Drive, it seems to be her first choice.

Sims said she wants the City Council to take the lead on the street renaming soon.

"It's probably going to take what it takes," she said. "But I'm hoping we can do this sooner rather than later and move on to something else. But it depends on the council and their readiness to deal with it."

The City Council can propose renaming a street. So can the High Point Planning and Zoning Commission, and so can the public, if a group can get signatures from 66.67 percent of the property owners who would be affected by the renaming. According to High Point Development Services Administrator Bob Robbins, however, the City Council does not have the authority to rename a street, unless it changes High Point's development ordinance.

Robbins is the point man on the city staff to document the history of efforts to name a street for King. He has prepared a five-page history of such for the upcoming work session. The document also includes relevant High Point ordinances and state laws.

"The Planning and Zoning Commission has the authority under the Development Ordinance to make the final decision regarding any street name change," Robbins wrote. "There is no appeal to the City Council."

Sims said the Planning and Zoning Commission was given final authority over street naming after earlier efforts to name streets after King. However, a zoning ordinance approved by the City Council in October 2002 details the way public petitions for name changes work and the findings the Planning and Zoning Commission must make to approve a street name change. It assumes that the Planning and Zoning Commission has the authority to do so.

High Point City Clerk Lisa Vierling said she thinks the Planning and Zoning Commission has always had that authority. She said, "To my knowledge, that's the way it's always been."

In 2002, there was an attempt by former Councilmember Ron Wilkins to get a zoning ordinance approved that would have given the City Council, not the Planning and Zoning Commission, authority to rename state roadways in High Point. The City Council killed the proposal on a 6-to-3 vote on March 21, 2002.

Wilkins tried to get the ordinance approved because many of the streets that had been proposed to be named for King are actually state roads, including the US 311 bypass; different sections of what was then called the Intermediate Loop (now East Hartley Drive, North College Drive and South College Drive); and Kivett Drive.

Name changes of state roadways must be also be approved by the North Carolina Board of Transportation, which requires a local consensus – something that has been notably lacking in the various efforts to name a street for King.

The five attempts to name a street for King were:

1) In 1991, based on a citizen petition, the Street Naming Committee of the Planning and Zoning Commission considered naming one of five streets for King. In September 1991, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved renaming the entire Intermediate Loop Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. High Point University, and residents of North College Drive who had recently had to change their addresses, opposed the renaming. The state Board of Transportation denied the request, citing a lack of local consensus.

2) In mid-1992, two options were suggested as streets to be renamed for King: East Kivett Drive from Centennial Street and to Business 85 and Brentwood Street. The proposal was killed after objections from the descendants of William Larkin Kivett (1864-1915), the farmer whose 240-acre property, at what is now 2406 Kivett Dr., gave its name to the street.

In a June 22, 1992, letter to the city, Marvin Kivett Jr., the grandson of William Larkin Kivett, said his grandfather was one of the largest and most progressive farmers in the area, and listed the extensive High Point community involvement of other members of his family.

Marvin Kivett Jr. wrote, "Kivett Drive has been in existence for nearly 90 years, so if the Planning and Development Commission feels that a Martin Luther King Boulevard is necessary, then certainly it can find a street to rename that will not destroy a part of the city's history."

The letter was also signed by other prominent High Point citizens, including longtime City Councilmember and now Guilford County Commissioner Bill Bencini Jr.

3) In April 1994, the Planning and Zoning Commission passed a resolution recommending to the City Council that the US 311 bypass be given an honorary designation in memory of King. In May 1994, the City Council proposed separating the bypass into three sections that would be given honorary names for King, jazz musician John Coltrane and prominent High Point furniture store owner Sanders Dallas. The state Board of Transportation rejected the proposal because it did not meet the state criteria for honorary street names.

4) In 2000, Wilkins proposed renaming all of North and South Centennial Street for King, a proposal Wilkins changed to North and South College Drive in 2001. This is the proposal most people in High Point remember. As Robbins put it mildly, "The proposal generated much community debate." High Point University and Christ United Methodist Church, which is at 1300 N. College Dr., opposed the proposal.

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The Planning and Zoning Commission on Sept. 25, 2001, voted 5 to 4 to approve the name change, then reconsidered its vote and defeated it by a second, 7-to-2 vote.

5) In February 2002, the Black Leadership Roundtable of High Point, of which Sims is a member, proposed naming College Drive from Eastchester Drive to Surrett Drive for King. Sims said, "Then, the buzz saw kicked in." The Planning and Zoning Commission killed the proposal by an unspecified vote on April 23, 2002.

That's where the issue stood until this year, when Sims made it one of her first initiatives as mayor. If Sims gets a street renamed for King, it will be an honor long ago granted by many other cities in the United States. But it will also be proof by Sims that she can put together a voting majority – and on an issue that still has opposition in High Point. If Sims fails, she will lose political capital.

Sims' chances are probably better if she picks a recently named street, or one without historical resonance, to rename. That's where the current research on the history of High Point street names comes in.

Larry Cates, a librarian at the Heritage Research Center at the High Point Public Library, has been researching the history of Kivett Drive since Sims' Jan. 10 proposal.

Cates wrote Vierling on Jan. 11 that William Larkin Kivett was killed in a dynamite explosion in 1915 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

Cates wrote, "I suspect this is the gentleman referred to in the controversy, since the first appearance of the street name is in the 1924 directory."

On Jan. 14, Cates wrote Vierling that the Kivett farm was across the road from, and slightly east of the current Hickory Chapel Wesleyan Church, near where Kivett Drive runs into Hickory Chapel Road. He said that, at the time of William Larkin Kivett's death, the road was referred to as Freeman Mill-High Point Road. Cates wrote, "It was probably called Kivett in High Point to begin with simply because it led to the Kivett farm."

That's exactly what the 1992 letter from Marvin Kivett Jr. disputed. That letter said Kivett Drive was named for the family, not the farm, and listed the work and civic accomplishments of numerous members of the family.

In fact, if Kivett Drive was not named until 1924, it is unlikely that it was named for the farm alone. The children of William Larkin Kivett sold the farm to the Amos family for $11,560 in 1923.

The High Point Enterprise reported the death by dynamite of William Larkin Kivett on Oct. 16, 1915. It was a great tragedy, and a great newspaper lead.

The paper reported, "The accidental explosion of a quantity of dynamite this morning hurled the souls of W. L. Kivett and his 10-year-old son, Byrne Kivett, into eternity, and scattered their mortal remains over 75 yards of ground, marking one of the most horrible affairs in the history of the High Point community."

The history of Centennial Drive has also come into question during the long hunt for a street to name after King. According to Robbins, the name is on city maps dating back to 1910, and the street may have been named at the time of the US Centennial in 1876.

Sims said that High Point needs to find a street to name for King, and it needs to be a major one. She said that King's legacy is not merely to black people, given his Nobel Peace Prize, his opposition to the Vietnam War and his support of economic justice.

"When you look at streets across the country, and around the world, everywhere where you see a street or facility named after Dr. King, it's always a facility of prominence," she said. "It's one that basically acknowledges who he is and who he was. When you start looking at streets, the streets need to be of prominence. And they don't need to be relegated to the African-American community, because Dr. King's struggle and inroads he made for civil rights were not just for African Americans."