The Patriot Post® · 'The Big 9': The Questionable Renaming of Things

In 1981, my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, renamed 9th Street “MLK Boulevard” after civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I always wondered why.

Yes, I understand it was to honor the man, but the only connection Dr. King ever had to Chattanooga was a speech he gave at Memorial Auditorium on December 30, 1960. In the 1950s, he was briefly considered for the pastorate at First Baptist Church on East 8th Street but was deemed too young and inexperienced. And that’s it for Dr. King’s connection to Chattanooga. He had no connection to 9th Street.

Why do we name areas and streets after people who had no significant connection to them at all?

Yes, I understand that one aspect of naming streets and boulevards after Dr. King was designed to promote conversation about racial equality.

Between 1900 and 1970, 9th Street in Chattanooga was widely known as “The Big 9,” a renowned black cultural center with restaurants, shops, movie theaters, and the Martin Hotel, arguably the finest black-owned and -operated hotel in the South. The Big 9 was known far and wide as a destination for some of the best live blues, R&B, jazz, and soul performances to be found anywhere. In its heyday, it rivaled and often surpassed even Beale Street in Memphis or Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

The Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith, the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s, called Chattanooga home and performed on The Big 9. So did Jimmy Blanton, who was a member of Duke Ellington’s band. He is credited with developing bebop jazz. Fred Cash and Sam Gooden were regulars on The Big 9. They went on with Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield from Chicago to form The Impressions, one of the greatest vocal groups of all time with a string of hits throughout the 1960s.

From outside Chattanooga, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, and James Brown all performed on The Big 9 at legendary night clubs The Whole Note and Brown Derby.

So why ignore six decades of cultural significance to honor a man who spent but a few hours in Chattanooga? (Rhetorical question, I know, but still.)

To honor Dr. King appropriately in Chattanooga, East 8th Street should have been renamed in a nod to MLK’s ministerial life and association (however brief) with First Baptist Church. As a Baptist minister, I doubt Dr. King really had much use for the club scene and live music that was such a big part of 9th Street for so many decades.

Then to properly recognize what a significant cultural center 9th Street was to the black community, it should have been renamed “The Big 9” if we are to be going about renaming things.

There is somewhat of a cultural renaissance going on in Chattanooga that is properly recognizing The Big 9, and it’s about time. Other areas of the country are waking up to history and finally setting things right as well.

In 1835, high in the Chuska mountain range of what is now New Mexico, 6'6" tall Narbona, the recognized leader of the Navajo Nation, stood regally above a narrow pass known as Beesh Lichii'I Bigiizh or Copper Pass and orchestrated an ambush that routed 1,000 Mexicans led by Capt. Blas de Hinojos. It was the largest armed expedition ever launched against the Navajo Nation by either Spain or Mexico. Narbona’s ambush was so dramatically and tactically successful in maintaining Navajo sovereignty that, uncharacteristically, the Navajo people deemed the area should forever be known as “Narbona Pass.”

Fourteen years later, Col. John Washington, leading a military operation against the Navajo, passed through Narbona Pass without incident, although his Pueblo Indian scouts were terrified of an imminent ambush. Washington’s cartographer, Lt. James Hervey Simpson, named the pass “Washington’s Pass” in honor of the expedition’s leader, although Washington accomplished nothing more significant there than simply passing through.

The name Washington’s Pass stood on maps for 133 years. Finally, by petition of the Navajo people, the area was finally returned to its former and rightful name of Narbona Pass in honor of the great leader of the Navajo Nation.

Today, New Mexico Hwy. 134, which passes between the Tunicha and Chuska Mountains, is once again known as Narbona Pass. This is an example of a record set straight.

With no dishonor whatsoever to the great Dr. King or his legacy, 9th Street in Chattanooga will always be The Big 9 to those who know local history. But in the years since it was renamed, the last vestigial remains of that cultural heritage have disappeared. Even the once-popular Bessie Smith Strut festival down MLK Street is now limited to one venue, the Big 9 Music Fest, in part because of concerns about gang violence on the streets.

I wish we could take back the streets and revitalize the great heritage that was once known as The Big 9!