What seemed a sure thing two weeks ago—the renaming of a portion of South Jefferson Street from U.S. 72 to Durham Drive in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—hit a snag Monday night when Athens City Councilman Jimmy Gill’s motion died for lack of a second.

Members of the local branch of the NAACP and many of their supporters who attended the council meeting showed visible signs of impatience with yet one more delay in the two-year process to name a street for MLK.

City Public Works Director James Rich made a presentation with slides of an approved $2 million extension of Durham Drive in Breeding Industrial Park and recommended as an alternative that the spur, which would loop around Steelcase to intersect with Roy Long Road, be named for Dr. King.

He said the new street would run past a multi-recreational facility now being developed to be named for Gill. The road extension is also in an area that is poised for heavy development with the purchase of an additional 53 acres to extend Breeding Park and so would offer the visibility that the NAACP has said it wants, Rich said.

“This will be the southern access from the Huntsville-Browns Ferry Road interchange to Breeding Park,” said Rich. “There is sewer going in south Limestone and a lot of development is coming to this area.”

Councilwoman Milly Caudle agreed with Rich’s recommendation.

“The basic issue has been visibility, insuring enough exposure to honor the memory of Dr. King,” she said. “It seems like this is a resolution of that issue.”

NAACP member Wilbur Woodruff, who has headed the committee to name a street for MLK, agreed that Rich’s proposal was good—but didn’t go far enough.

“Whatever the council wants to do is what I want to do,” said Woodruff. “But why not (named for MLK) all the way from U.S. 72 to Roy Long Road? It’s a pretty visible stretch (the extension), but it’s only two-thirds of a mile long and it’s only visible from one side of Steelcase.”

Woodruff talked about overcoming the “stigmas” of the South, all the way from physical punching in the state Legislature to vestiges of racial inequality, which he said were drawbacks to development.

“We’re trying to step into the 21st century,” said Woodruff. “We need to put aside our personal agendas.”

NAACP President Benard Simelton expressed frustration with the proposed alternative and accused the council of “backing up” from the South Jefferson Street renaming, which the he said had been suggested to his organization by the city.

“We will march on until victory is won in this situation,” said Simelton. “We want a vote of affirmation on South Jefferson Street.”

Business owners Ralph Freehauf, who owns Cinemagic Theatre, and Lula Bell George, who with her son, owns and operates a Nationwide Insurance office on South Jefferson Street, complained of the expense they would face in changing addresses. Freehauf said if business owners have to change their addresses, then the city should compensate them for their expense.

Gill, the only African-American member of the City Council, said that he believed Rich’s recommendation to be a workable solution. “I believe it is visible and will have a lot of traffic once it’s built.”