MID-SOUTH MEMORIES

25 years ago — 1996

PINE BLUFF, Ark. – After protests that renaming Ohio Street after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be too costly for business owners along the thoroughfare, a citizens group has aimed to rename the city’s convention center. The Interested Citizens for Voter Registration says it will be cheaper for the city to rename the Pine Bluff Convention Center and Convention Center Drive in honor of the civil rights leader. The new names would be the Martin Luther King Jr. Convention Center and the MLK Convention Center Drive. ”There would be very little expense involved in the change,” said Rev. Jesse Turner. ”Mayor Taylor and others have said the name should be on something with high visibility. The naming of the convention center should be excellent and accomplish the goal that the mayor and others want.”

50 years ago — 1971

Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace yesterday ordered the Jefferson County (Birmingham) Board of Education to ignore a federal court desegregation order and reassign a 15-year-old white girl to a school nearer her home so she could play in the band. Wallace indicated he might have further orders of the sort involving entire schools instead of one child.

75 years ago — 1946

A major upheaval in management of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra appeared in the making at the annual membership meeting of the Memphis Symphony Society Inc. last night.

125 years ago — 1896

WATER VALLEY, Miss. – Hamilton College, which will be moved from Byhalia, Miss., to Water Valley, yesterday elected the following new Board of Directors: Dr. H.A. Grant, J.M. Taylor, J.V. Blackmur, B. Leland, William Hassman, T.J. Blount and G.B. Ables.

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FILES Aug. 8, 1977: Jesse Turner, center, visits with Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin Hooks before Hooks addressed the 107th meeting of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Tennessee at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Hooks was recently named executive director of the NAACP. More than 600 persons attended the banquet, which was the highlight of the grand lodge's five-day convention here.