A Highway Named For Carl Stokes?
The PD reports that efforts are afoot to name a highway in honor of the late Cleveland mayor Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a major American city, elected 40 years ago. Okay, let him have his highway. His kid brother Lou, after all, has his name on half the large buildings in Cleveland, payback for all the hometown pork he shoveled through the Appropriations Committee during his long tenure on Capitol Hill. And as I discovered in a recent trip to Cincinnati, Ohio already has a highway named for Ronald Reagan. But I think the state legislature would be remiss in its duties if it didn't also at least acknowledge that the Carl Stokes legacy was tarnished a good bit by his actions toward the end of his life. So if the highway is to be named after him, how about also placing a Carl Stokes memorial hardware store and pet shop side by side just off one of the exit ramps?