Council approves Robertson Street MLK overlay

Sixty-seven years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, he will receive the honor of having a street named for him in Gonzales.

Gonzales City Council members voted 4-0 Thursday, Aug. 14, to authorize a request from The Edwards Association to add the late civil rights leader’s name as an overlay to Robertson Street between U.S. 90A and St. Andrew Street.

Members of the Edwards Association originally asked the council in February 2024 to consider renaming Robertson Street, which was named for a prominent family in the Gonzales community, after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and presented 117 letters of support for the name change. That particular step was two years in the making at the time.

City Manager Tim Crow had said last year the council established a policy last year regarding the renaming of streets, trails and public buildings and the discussion around Robertson Street was centered on doing a street overlay and “leaving the Robertson Street name.”

During a workshop meeting, it was determined it would be more cost-effective and less disruptive for the city and for residents to go with an overlay rather than actually changing the name of the street. A public hearing was held earlier this year and letters were sent out to all impacted property owners — a total of eight were returned with no objections to the overlay proposal.

As the party making the request, the Edwards Association will pay for the wayfinding signs that will be put up as part of the overlay, Crow said, noting he will meet with Edwards Association President David Tucy to determine if they will put up signs at every street intersection or every other intersection on the stretch that has been designated.

“We thank God first, the Mayor and the members of the City Council,” Tucy said on the association’s Facebook page after the vote was taken. “I personally want to thank the members of the Edwards Association and all of those who supported this endeavor.”

According to The King Center in Atlanta, Ga., “During the less than 13 years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the modern American Civil Rights Movement, from December 1955 until April 4, 1968, African Americans achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality in America than the previous 350 years had produced. Dr. King is widely regarded as America’s pre-eminent advocate of nonviolence and one of the greatest nonviolent leaders in world history.”

He is the only non-president to have a national holiday dedicated in his honor and is the only non-president memorialized on the Great Mall in the nation’s capital, The King Center notes.