Actor and Benton Harbor native Ernie Hudson is in Benton Harbor this weekend to speak with the community, inspire high school graduates, and celebrate an honorary street renaming for him.
Hudson spoke with elementary school students in Benton Harbor, at a senior center, and with inmates at the Berrien County Jail this week.
Benton Harbor Mayor Marcus Muhammad tells us the city will hold the official street renaming ceremony for South Fair Avenue from Buss Avenue to Hall Street on Saturday with Hudson on hand. The street will now be called Ernie Hudson Way.
“The signs will be installed already,” Muhammad said. “What we plan to do is just run a show, a few speakers, family, friends, elected officials, and of course the honoree himself, Ernie Hudson. We’ll take some pictures and just celebrate the moment.”
Muhammad said residents in the neighborhood petitioned to rename the street in honor of Hudson, who grew up along Buss. He says Hudson’s success story is an inspiration to the entire community.
“It’s a testament that ordinary people can do extraordinary things, and Ernie Hudson is an example in real time and in plain sight of that fact.”
Hudson is also addressing the commencement ceremony at Benton Harbor High School tonight. Muhammad said he would be there as his own son is graduating.
Ernie Hudson is a graduate of Benton Harbor High School who acted in theater in Detroit before finding his fortune in Hollywood. He’s best known as Winston Zeddemore from Ghostbusters, a movie that Muhammad says was one of the biggest of the 1980s. It is loved by an entire generation who grew up watching it.
