Doubling Down on America’s Racist Past

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I live in King County, Washington. The county hosts the cities of Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond, along with 33 other incorporated cities and towns. Ask anyone. King obviously refers to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After all, its easy to find following type of comment:

King County, Washington's largest county, is the first county in the nation to be named in honor of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), the celebrated civil rights leader and advocate of nonviolence. 

We see his silhouette on our buses, our government buildings, and the county flag. 

Image courtesy of freepik.com

But wait a minute

Think about this. The county pre-dated Dr. King.

Therein lies the irony. For over a century and a half, our county was actually was named after a man who stood for everything Dr. King spent his life trying to dismantle.

Yes, for sure. The county has been "King County" since it was created in 1852, When the Oregon Territorial Legislature carved out this land. They named the county after William Rufus DeVane King, a democrat, Alabama politician, and slave owner who had just been elected Vice President. He was a man who grew wealthy off the forced labor of hundreds of enslaved people and was a staunch defender of the Fugitive Slave Act. 

King the V.P. never even set foot in the county. He is our only vice president to take his oath of office on foreign soil (inaugurated in Cuba) and died there 45 days later of tuberculosis. Can this get even more crazier? Fast forward to the 1980s.

In 1986 the County Council passed a motion to redesignate the county in honor of Dr. King Jr. This symbolic gesture lacked the weight of law. Because unfortunately, in Washington only the state has the power to officially name a county. So get the state legislature to change the name right? Flash back to a post I wrote a year ago: 
In 2002, 29% of voters opposed “removing historical racial references, such as “negroes,” “mulattoes” and “whites," from the Oregon Constitution." (Oregon Measure 14).
You can guess where this is going. It took from 1986 to 2005 for tireless lobbying before the state legislature passed Senate Bill 5332 for Governor Christine Gregoire to sign into law. King5 TV's video "Grassroots effort led to King County being renamed to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." narrates this journey. 

Which leads me to two diversions for you to ponder: 

1) King5 was launched in 1948 and has served CBS and ABC before becoming an NBC affiliate in 1959. That should immediately tell you that it was named after the racist, slave-owning, foreign-inaugurated, died-in-Cuba vice president, not MLK.

2) Our state legislative history shows that even in 2005, before the vote, Republican Luke Esser, elected representative serving the 48th district that includes Redmond and Bellevue, proposed an amendment to the bill to name the county after BOTH Kings - the VP and MLK. He just could not let it go! This amendment was withdrawn on the same day as it was passed (March 8, 2005). 

Why Should You Care?

Gemini AI says: King County is now the only jurisdiction in the United States to have performed this kind of historical pivot, essentially keeping the "brand" while completely replacing the soul behind it. I don't know if that's true as there are many many jurisdictions in the USA. But it does serve as a reminder that progress isn't just about moving forward; sometimes it requires us to reach back and untangle the knots of a past we never asked for, but inherited nonetheless.

I add: is this re-writing or correcting history? Should we change the meanings of places to better reflect today's social norms? What about TV stations? Can we change the attitudes and opinions of elected officials who double down?

Read my related posts: analyzing Bob Marley’s buffalo soldier and the US is a colonial power. 

What do others say? "Galeeb Kachra truly is one of a kind. A unique combination of optimism, can-do determination and relentless energy, he has the wiliness and moral integrity required to shake up sclerotic systems and sweep away logjams." (Michela Wrong, 2021)

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