Wheeling Street Unique in State - WTRF 7 News Sports Weather - Wheeling Steubenville

Wheeling residents came together on the 50th anniversary of the city's Human Rights Commission to focus on rights for all Americans.

Due to the heat, the Fourth Street United Methodist Church opened its doors for a ceremony dedicating a street in Wheeling as "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way."  Afterwards, outside of the church, local dignitaries unveiled the sign with the new street name. 

One advocate for the renaming told how many other streets he found in West Virginia named after Dr. King.  "None. None," Rev. Willie Nevels of the Morningstar Baptist Church of Weirton said.  He qualified his remark by saying he had done just an Internet search.  "There's only one place named for Dr. Martin Luther King in West Virginia.  And that's in Charles Town, West Virginia," he continued.

Nevels, along with the Upper Ohio Valley Ministers Alliance, worked to have 11th and Chapline streets to the Chief Mingo Statue on Wheeling Hill named after Dr. King.  Ivan Law grew up in the neighborhood, and said he started his public education in the old Lincoln School in 1939. 

"This neighborhood used to, it was, the lifeblood of the black neighborhood.  Everything that was done, was done in this area.  School, doctors, and like the reverend says, this was it," he reminisced.