NAPAAHC Hosts Dedication of C.K. Steele Memorial Highway

On Saturday, January 19, 2019, in conjunction with the Florida Department of Transportation and the City of Tallahassee, The National Association for the Preservation of African-American History & Culture, Inc. hosted the renaming and dedication of state roads 371 and 373 in honor of the Rev. C.K. Steele took place at 11:00 AM at the corner of West Orange Avenue and Capital Circle Southwest in Tallahassee, FL.

Rev. C.K. Steele is known for organizing the Tallahassee Bus Boycott after two Florida A&M University students Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson were arrested for sitting in a “whites only” section of a segregated city bus. He later served as a state and local president of the NAACP and founding Executive Vice President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He died in 1980.

In 1983, Tallahassee City commissioners voted to name the city’s bus terminal downtown in his honor. The roadway designation was approved by the state legislature after four years of intense lobbying by NAPAAHC Executive Director Delaitre Hollinger and signed into law by the governor last year.

Florida State Representative Loranne Ausley served as Mistress of Ceremonies. Featured speakers included NAPAAHC Chairman and Pastor of Watson Temple Institutional Church of God In Christ, Dr. Donald E. Sheppard; U.S. Congressman Alfred Lawson, Jr.; Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil; Tallahassee Mayor John E. Dailey; Mayor Pro Tem Curtis Richardson; Tallahassee City Commissioners Elaine W. Bryant, Dianne Williams-Cox and Jeremy Matlow; Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor; Florida State Senator William J. "Bill" Montford, III; Former Florida State Representative Alan Williams; Former Tallahassee Mayor and City Commissioner Kent Spriggs; Tallahassee NAACP President Adner Marcelin; Tallahassee Urban League President Curtis Taylor; A.M.E. Senior Bishop A.J. Richardson; and Bethel Missionary Baptist Church Pastor, Rev. Dr. R.B. Holmes, Jr.