The effort to rename a road in a middle-class neighborhood in south DeKalb County for Martin Luther King Jr. has failed, in part because residents object to changing their addresses.
"It's too much of a hassle to have to go to the post office, call on all your bills and get everything changed," said Corey Jackson, a HERO driver whose home sits among the lushly landscaped lawns and spacious homes that dot Snapfinger Road between Wesley Chapel Road and the Henry County line.
Without responses from far-off banks that own several foreclosed properties on the road, those sentiments were enough for the renaming effort to fail, even as many agreed they supported the civil rights leader.
"It's a good idea, as long as I don't have to change my address," Jackson added. "I'm fine with a sign."
And that is exactly what will happen to the five-mile stretch of road. The County Commission recently approved designating the road, so it will also be known for the civil rights icon.
State transportation officials have begun surveying the road and will soon be putting up signs with the honor.
"It won't affect people's mail, but it will bestow an honor long overdue," said Commissioner Stan Watson, whose district includes the mostly black, established neighborhoods along the roadway.
Renaming streets in memory of the civil rights leader began in Chicago, just a few months after he was assassinated in 1968. Since then, at least 900 drives, boulevards and parkways have been named for him across the country.
Georgia has the most roads named for King in the country, with 128, according to Derek Alderman, an East Carolina University geographer who has studied the renaming trend.
None, though, are in DeKalb, where police in the then-majority white county arrested King in 1960. The charge: driving without a license, because he had an Alabama, not Georgia, license.
King received a year's probation for the violation, a harsh penalty that laid the groundwork for him to be sent to state prison and subsequently receive the help from the Kennedy family that increased his visibility, according to DeKalb History Center records.
Members of the DeKalb NAACP were trying showcase that history and King's work when they launched their petition drive last year.
"The most important thing, the whole goal, is to bring a focus to the community on the goals and work and history of Dr. King," said Lance Hammonds, first vice president of the NAACP DeKalb.
The designation, instead of a renaming, is a compromise to achieve those goals, organizers said. Hammonds said the NAACP's annual MLK Day parade may be moved from Stone Mountain to Snapfinger, to draw more attention to the effort.
And the road, regardless of its official name, still goes by the only high school in the state named for King.
"I'd love for it to be permanent," said Tony Blackmon, a disabled HVAC worker who lives in one of the new subdivisions off Snapfinger. "But as long as Dr. King is getting the recognition, I'm for it."
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