Martin Luther King Jr. Day-Arizona Civil Rights History [View all]

[saidsimplesimon]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/martin-luther-king-jr-day-how-much-do-you-know-about-arizonas-civil-rights-history/ar-BBZ9oYo

Kaila White, Arizona Republic
1/20/20

Calvin Goode still lives on the property he bought in central Phoenix in 1955, in a small home at Jefferson and 15th streets, steps away from historic Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church.

At the time, it was one of the few neighborhoods where black Arizonans were allowed to buy homes. Now, it's jutted up against a light-rail line, near a prestigious Great Hearts charter school, on the edge of an upscale apartment housing boom.

After growing up attending segregated schools in Gila Bend and Phoenix in the 1940s, Goode in 1972 became the second black person to serve on the Phoenix City Council. He held the position for 22 years.

He said he remembered once, when he was a young man, he applied for a job at a Phoenix high school and was denied because the principal did not want him supervising white women.
...snip
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1988, an estimated 15,000 people gathered in downtown Phoenix for a march to the Arizona State Capitol protesting the state's refusal to recognize the holiday. It was a rainy, cold, windy day, but so many people attended that the crowd flooded three lanes of traffic.

Years of political fighting over the holiday created a national image of Arizona as a state locked in a racial battle.

Several big-name musicians and national conventions canceled their Arizona events. After two ballot propositions to make the day a state holiday failed, the National Football League relocated the 1993 Super Bowl from Sun Devil Stadium to Pasadena, California.

Finally, voters approved a state King holiday in November 1992, making Arizona the only state that put it to a vote of the people and saw it pass.

.....much more at the link, excellent piece, imo