Across the U.S., Streets Named After Martin Luther King Jr. Remain a Battleground for Equality Melvin White remembers exactly where he was when the idea came to him. "I was a mail carrier, so I’m delivering mail on the street and thought, ‘Wow, this doesn’t make sense,’" he says. "Abandoned buildings, drugs being sold. This is a really bad street. You look at the name on the street sign and I was like, ‘This does not correlate with what he stood for.’" A dilapidated building sits on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in St. Louis, Missouri. Scenes like this inspired Melvin White to found Beloved Streets of America, a nonprofit organization aiming to revitalize the street and surrounding areas.