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Houston City Council's recent vote to rename a road on the University of Houston's campus to Martin Luther King Boulevard is a nod toward HU's reputation for inclusion and diversity, city and university officials said.
"Since its inception, @UHouston prepares students to envision their future, emerge as leaders and launch careers that transform the world," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a Twitter post the same day as the city council vote.
The university marked the vote in a Facebook post that includes a video aerial view of the renamed road. During the video, Martin Luther King Jr. is speaking in the background during his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 28, 1963.
"Houston City Council has approved a name change for the section of Calhoun Road that runs through campus," the University said in a post to its Facebook page the same day. "The name of the street where UH resides should not be counter to our ideals, values and mission. We celebrate diversity and reject beliefs associated with racial suppression and inequity."
At its Wednesday, Sept. 1 meeting, the Houston City Council approved an ordinance to rename a portion of Calhoun Road, for South Carolina-born John C. Calhoun, who was the nation's seventh vice president who also served in the administration of President Andrew Jackson, to Martin Luther King Boulevard, for famed Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. The new road name stretches from north of Wheeler Street and to south of Texas Spur 5.
Calhoun, among other things, was adamantly pro-slavery, lead the U.S. Senate's pro-slavery faction at the time and defended keeping people in bondage as a "necessary evil" and a "positive good" in which the enslaved and their owners benefited. Calhoun owned dozens of slaves on his plantation in Fort Hill, South Carolina.
The road rename was sparked by a letter from University President Renu Khator to city councilmember Carolyn Evans-Shabazz in July, requesting the name change to something more fitting to UH's ideals and mission, according to ABC 13's coverage.
"As you know, the University of Houston is proud to be the second most diverse research university in the country, a minority-serving institution, and a minority-majority university," Khator said. The name of the street on which our university resides should not be counter to the ideals and mission of our community and a university that celebrates diversity and rejects beliefs associated with racial suppression and inequality."
Evans-Shabazz, who represents Houston's District D, backed Khator's request.
"I think it's very important to not glorify people who did not indicate that they were fair and just," Evans-Shabazz said in ABC 13's news story.