To the Editor [of the Daily Progress]:

Symbols are very very important. Think of the Cross and the Torah. Peoples die in order to protect their symbols from desecration and profanation and ridicule. For those Americans who have not forgotten their history Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the single most important American human rights leader of the past century. He moved a nation from an era of incredible racial economic and political injustice to one of greater racial justice and sensitivity. Dr. King did this by an appeal to the conscience of the American people and moved us to change without the widespread bloodshed that such radical revolutions usually involve. He is for Black and White people alike THE 20th Century American symbol for racial justice.

The recent attempt by City Councilor Maurice Cox, musician John McCutcheon and civil rights leader Rev. Henry Silva to name an important roadway in Charlottesville for Dr. King is a symbolic act to draw our attention to a sea change in our history and to the leader who made the most difference in that change. Your columnist Bob Gibson ("Notebook," 9/3/00) ridicules the whole effort. A Republican committee member calls it "politically correct hogwash" ("Bypass proposal," 9/2/00). Councilor David J. Toscano thinks it is "..a way to honor constituencies in our community" ("Bypass," 9/2,00). The Mayor appears miffed that Councilor Cox did not tell him in advance. (Progress 9/1/00). We should hope that our City Councilors would have responded: "Yes, Charlottesville is way overdue in lifting up in some important way Dr. King and the movement he led. Let's get at it, maybe name a road, better still erect a statue."

Can it be that the parties quoted by The Daily Progress are too young to have been with us in the 50's and 60's or could they have forgotten America's huge debt to Dr. King? This is not about pleasing African Americans or about naming streets. This is about honoring the central symbolic figure and the movement which he lead in which thousands of us participated and for which some, including Dr. King, gave their lives.

The Very Rev. Charles A. Perry (electronic mail, September 8, 2000).