TO THE EDITOR:
Proponents of renaming Airport Road after Martin Luther King Jr. are reinforcing an unfortunate national tendency to reduce the civil rights movement - a struggle carried out by many heroic men and women - to a single iconic figure.
Are we truly honoring the civil rights movement or merely practicing celebrity worship?
I participated in the March on Washington in August 1963 and was on the front lines in Mississippi during Freedom Summer in 1964.
Bob Moses, John Lewis, Aaron Henry and many others were our inspirations, no less than Dr. King.
In Chapel Hill, brave men and women - black and white - fought against a heritage of racism and achieve victories in an unfinished struggle for civil and human rights.
If we are to rename Airport Road, it would be more appropriate to honor a local leader than to follow the example of communities that ignore their own histories.
To say this is not to dishonor King, but to recognize that his leadership depended upon the actions of unsung heroes, among whom are past and present members of our own community.
Steven Levine
