Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy is routinely named the region's best writer by readers of The Roanoker magazine.

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The First Street bridge in Roanoke is an apt symbol of the city's racial segregation in the Jim Crow era.

That's why city council named the structure for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and that's why a $2.77 million renovation is in progress, with a plaza honoring King and a statue of the slain civil rights leader to follow.

Today, the bridge also serves as a particularly apt metaphor, because it is gone.

Nobody can cross from First Street Northwest to First Street Southwest, or vice versa, at all.

Undoubtedly, that was the mind-set among far too many Roanokers before King and his supporters used passive resistance to build bridges between people separated on the basis of race.

In the early 20th century, Roanoke had ordinances designating black neighborhoods and white ones. Even after those laws disappeared, the habit of staying apart remained.

Old ways linger

In the 2000 U.S. census, Roanoke was dubbed the most segregated city in Virginia and ranked 66th in segregation among 330 national metropolitan areas.

No law prohibits anybody from living anywhere nowadays, not for reasons of race. But habit, tradition, comfort and other factors have kept the city unacceptably segregated.

Barring unforeseen complications, the King bridge will be in place for this holiday in 2008. The civil rights leader's admirers and people in favor of justice generally will gather then as they gather today.

The scene will be all the more jubilant for the return of the black steel trusses and narrow roadbed.

Change has come

Closed to motor vehicles since the late 1990s, the bridge will serve pedestrians only and will include its throwback plank sidewalk on its east side above the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks.

Much has changed since the late 1990s, to say nothing of the early 20th century.

The former office buildings of the Norfolk and Western Railway have been converted into apartments and a higher education center.

Henry Street, the former name of First Street Northwest, sports a renovated Dumas Hotel, now the Dumas Center for Artistic & Cultural Development. A culinary school is in the works. The Gainsboro parking garage brings people to the neighborhood.

As the changes come, the area will be different. The King memorial and other touches will remind us of the bygone days.

"We're going to reuse most of the original bridge," said Luke Pugh, a civil engineer for the city.

The bridge's steel is at a fabricator's shop near Raleigh, N.C. Its lead paint is being removed, its condition checked.

The span's south end, with its long, steep slope to Salem Avenue, will be redone. Two pillars with appropriate markings will be erected at each end.

The stone piers across the railroad tracks will be pointed and spiffed up. The bridge should be re-erected this spring, and work on the King memorial statue and plaza should be completed by the fall.

The city's decision to honor King came late and with controversy. Proposals to rename Orange Avenue and Elmwood Park went nowhere.

Perneller Chubb-Wilson turned to God. Chubb-Wilson, founder of the Roanoke chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, sparked the movement.

"I prayed for guidance for the best place to name something after Martin Luther King, where the city wouldn't get in trouble for doing so," she said.

When the city council approved the motion to rename the bridge, "I jumped up and down and praised the Lord."

Today, people will be praising the Lord at First Baptist Church in Northwest Roanoke for sending a soldier like King to lead the fight against racial oppression.

What is amazing is not how far the country has come or how much work remains to be done.

What's amazing is that some people still don't get the greatness of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Even a racist would have to admit the man had incredible courage. Martyrs usually do.