GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — History was made in Grand Rapids Wednesday as the Franklin Street fire station has been renamed to Martin Luther King Jr. Street Fire Station.
This comes a little more than a month after the intersection of Grandville Avenue SW and Franklin Street NW were renamed César E. Chávez Avenue SW and Martin Luther King Jr. Street SW.
To keep up with the fire department’s tradition of naming fire stations after the street they are located.
Grand Rapids is now the first city in Michigan with an intersection named after two civil rights heroes Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King.
The street renaming was made possible by the work of the Moving Ahead for Remarkable Civil Rights Heroes (M.A.R.C.H.) Committee.
Second ward city commissioner Milinda Ysasi says this was just one small way to salute these American civil rights leaders in this way.
“As the City’s first Grand Rapids Latina Commissioner, this brings me a lot of joy to be able to rename these streets for these two civil rights heroes,” Ysasi said.
"Recently we’ve come have through a time of racial reckoning in this community and in this country. We are everyday striving for that racial equity that Martin Luther King, Jr. and César Chávez worked towards, and this is truly historic," Ysasi said.
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Commissioner Lenear, the first Black woman elected to the City Commission, said the work to rename the streets had a huge impact on her.
“This is really about community, unity, dedication and representation that are all things that matter,” Lenear said.
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