By Eddie Rye, Jr.
I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1942, at Charity Hospital in the Colored Section. Spending the first ten years of my life in Shreveport, I attended West Shreveport Colored Elementary School. I recall getting on the bus, paying in the front, walking around the bus, and reentering to get on the back. The only passengers in the back of the bus were Black. I remember the Colored and White signs on drinking fountains and public restrooms, sitting in the balcony at movie theaters, and getting food from white restaurants to go, usually at the side or back door.
My father, Eddie Rye Sr., was appointed by A. Philip Randolph to be one of the Northwest Organizers for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (Pullman Porters) in 1948, and the Rye Family relocated to Seattle in 1952. The racial discrimination was somewhat kinder in Seattle. Living on 20th and Denny Street, Blacks couldn’t rent apartments across the street. Many employment opportunities were not available to Black people, leading to housing discrimination and Black residents residing in housing projects in the Central Area of Seattle.
After graduating from Garfield High School and attending Compton Junior College, I was talked into joining the Washington National Guard Medical Battalion. I took basic training at Fort Ord in California and went on to San Antonio, Texas, to Fort Sam Houston, Brooke Army Medical Center for medic training. Getting off the plane in the terminal, I was getting a drink of water when a white man yelled, “Hey boy, that uniform doesn’t make you white; you are drinking out of the white water fountain.” While in San Antonio, one Sunday afternoon, I went downtown to a movie theater with my Army uniform on and tried to buy a movie ticket, only to be told I needed to buy it in the colored section. I explained that I was being trained to fight and protect all citizens in the United States, to which she responded, “You are still a n***er with an Army uniform on.”
I wanted to share some of my personal experiences with racism to emphasize what the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement for full equality meant to me. I understood what the Montgomery Bus Boycott meant to Black people because of my experience of riding on the back of the bus. I watched with great excitement the August 28, 1963, March on Washington DC for Jobs and Freedom, which led to Dr. King and other Civil Rights leaders having President Lyndon Johnson sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, finally giving African Americans their rights; all other people of color were honorary whites.
Dr. King’s courageous stands for African American rights compelled me to do whatever I could to ensure his life’s works for African Americans would not be forgotten. That was the main reason I helped organize the effort to have the street “Empire Way” changed to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther Jr. Way. The battle to change the name was opposed by most of the white media in Seattle, lawsuits were filed to prevent the name change, which had to be resolved by the Washington State Supreme Court. On November 30, 1983, the court voted that the City of Seattle had the authority to change the name to MLK Way. President Ronald Reagan signed legislation on November 2, 1963, making Dr. King’s birthday an official national holiday on the third Monday of January beginning in 1986.
The renaming of King County
The King County Council voted on February 24, 1986, to name the county for Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a 5 to 4 vote. At the Seattle Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee on January 18, 1999, I stated to the gathering at the rally that it had been 13 years since the King County Council vote to name the county for Dr. King, but there was no visible indication this is MLK County. I put a motion on the floor for King County Councilman Larry Gossett to determine what had to be done to make the name change official. It was determined that only the state legislature had the authority to change the name of a county. 37th District State Senator Adam Kline answered the call and placed legislation up six times (1999-2005) before the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. County legislation passed. Governor Christine Gregoire signed the legislation into law at the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. County Courthouse on April 19, 2005. It took another year to have Dr. King’s image as the official logo for the county.
Remember the price Reverend Dr. Martin Luther Jr. and others paid for the freedoms that African Americans enjoyed until recently; we must rededicate our efforts for full equality in education, employment, and business opportunities. The fight for equality is not over for African Americans in the USA.