On the 43rd anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, CNN reports that the city of Memphis will finally rename a one-mile stretch of Linden Avenue to Dr. M.L. King Jr.  The prestigious honor has already occurred in streets across the country and in countries like Italy — a place which honored King by renaming streets after him in no less than 10 cities. According to MLKStreet.com, there are 893 places that have roadways memorializing King in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

The very busy downtown section of Linden Avenue is home to the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, and was selected for renaming because King marched there in support of sanitation workers. “He marched along this street; we wanted something that had a real nexus to this city,” Mayor A.C. Wharton said to CNN.

While this is a great honor, one question remains: What took Memphis so long?