Modesto councilman wants plaza in downtown’s heart named for Martin Luther King Jr.
Modesto Councilman Tony Madrigal wants the plaza in front of Tenth Street Place — the city-county administration center in the heart of downtown — renamed in honor of assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Jr.
Madrigal said this is something he has thought about over a number of years and made a formal request in June and asked City Manager Joe Lopez for an update at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
“... Honoring Martin Luther King in downtown Modesto is part of what Modesto is about,” Madrigal said in an interview. He said King’s message of racial, economic and social justice is just as relevant today as it was during his lifetime. King was shot to death in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Tenth Street Plaza takes up a city block and is home to such events as the annual National Day of Prayer, festivals and concerts, candlelight vigils, as well as demonstrations and rallies representing a range of political beliefs, from conservative Tea Party members gathering in the plaza about a decade ago to the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
The recent BLM rallies, vigils and marches throughout the county are part of the nationwide outrage over the May 25 death of George Floyd. The demonstrations also have highlighted economic and social inequality, which the new coronavirus pandemic has brought into sharp focus.
Decision rests with elected officials
The city of Modesto and Stanislaus County own Tenth Street Place and its plaza. A commission consisting of the city manager, county chief executive officer and elected officials from the City Council and county Board of Supervisors meets on occasion regarding Tenth Street Place and its plaza.
Lopez will forward Madrigal’s request to the commission, according to a city spokesman. Patty Hill Thomas, the county’s chief operations officer, said the key is that the city and county and its elected leaders would need to agree to the request. She was not sure whether that necessarily meant bringing the request to the commission or whether bringing it the City Council and Board of Supervisors would be sufficient.
At the time of his assassination, King was planning a Poor People’s Campaign “to demand jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, and education for poor adults and children designed to improve their self-image and self-esteem,” according to a source Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research & Education Institute cites on its website.
Madrigal said equal opportunity for prosperity for all goes hand in hand with social and racial equality. He encouraged residents who support renaming the plaza to contact council members and county supervisors.
