City of Gadsden, Etowah County and Attalla leaders were among many who gathered at Gadsden City High School auditorium Aug. 10 to celebrate the unveiling earlier that day of a highway sign designating U.S. 431-Meighan Boulevard in the Gadsden city limits as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Parkway.
They gathered also to commemorate the contributions of others who played a role in the Civil Rights movement, but on a local level and on a broader stage.
Four local Civil rights leaders, all deceased, were honored: Q.D. Adams, William Flemming, Joseph Faulker and Gadsden native James Hood. Hood was one of the first two students to enroll at the University of Alabama after late Gov. George Wallace made his infamous stand in the school house door and was removed by federal authorities.
Adams, Fleming and Faulkner continued to work in their community for Civil Rights long after the conflicts of the 1960s ended.
William Moore, a Baltimore postman, killed on U.S. 11 near Keener while walking through Alabama on his way to Mississippi to deliver a letter opposing segregation to the governor, also was recognized.
More than 40 years after Moore’s murder in April 1963, no one has been convicted of the crime.