KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — More than 50 years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the question of how to honor him continues to divide Kansas City residents.

When the City Council voted in January to name a 10-mile boulevard that runs north and south through mostly minority neighborhoods after the civil rights icon, Kansas City seemed to finally shed its distinction as one of the largest cities in the U.S. without a street named for King. That vote capped a contentious effort led by black pastors and officials of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conferenc...