VA is renaming Jefferson Davis highway and looking for suggestions

[Lotusflower70]

Virginia is renaming Jefferson Davis Highway and asking the internet for suggestions https://t.co/sKcYODGvSt https://t.co/LGJwJ82VmK

[Warren DeMontague]

1. Clarence Clemons Memorial Freeway?

[greeny2323]

2. Barack Obama highway :)

Or, if not that, Roady McRoadface

[CatMor]

30. I agree with you

it should be the Barack Obama Highway

[Squinch]

43. Love them both!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Name it after Heather Heyer.

[MrsCoffee]

28. Agreed.

[MurrayDelph]

4. How 'bout

The Heather Heyer Freedom Memorial Highway?

[CozyMystery]

7. Perfect!

I'm going back to suggest this too -

[Squinch]

44. OOH! VERY nice!

[CozyMystery]

5. My recommendations

Michelle Obama
Ella Fitzgerald
Pearl Bailey

I consulted this website for links to VA (the last 2): https://www.virginia.org/africanamericanvirginians

[Warren DeMontague]

31. Yeah, like I said, they seem to have missed Clarence Clemons.

He was from VA too

[old guy]

6. Why name it after anyone?

It has a state or federal number designation, use it.

[KatyMan]

10. Was just going to say that

Why bother? Can only cause confusion.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. Lots of highways have names along with the number designation.

The Jeff Davis Highway is Route 1 as it passes through Arlington and Alexandria, VA.

A portion of Interstate 17 through Phoenix is called the Black Canyon Freeway. I believe part of Interstate 10 in Texas is known as the Katy Freeway. And so on.

If they simply try to strip the name Jeff Davis Highway off that part of the road, it won't have any effect. Re-naming it is a good idea.

[NCjack]

37. If it isn't named, that makes it a little easier for Repugs to name it after Reagan,

Bush, or Trump. I suggest that we honor America's first great scientist -- Benjamin Franklin Highway.

[4139]

8. Douglas Wilder Highway...

Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born January 17, 1931) is an American politician, who served as the first African American to be elected as governor of Virginia and first African-American governor of any U.S. state since Reconstruction. Wilder served as the 66th Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994

Of course if they want accurate they should call it Bumpy Crappy Road

[underpants]

17. That or Maggie Walker

Heads will be 'sploding

[Warpy]

9. Thomas Jefferson, of course

Born and educated in Virginia, authored the fiery Declaration of Independence, helped to build the union rather than destroy it,

[Fluke a Snooker]

20. No!

Not one more memorial to the one Founding Father whom most African Americans find absolutely reprehensible.
No, no, no, no....NO!!

(And for the record, the "Declaration of Independence" was for WHITE PEOPLE ONLY, including the damn "union.&quot

[Warpy]

25. The biggest mistake you can make is judging another time by your own standards

Slavery was a reprehensible institution and we did manage to end it at great cost.

Breaking away from Britain was mostly an antitax revolt. British taxes were depressing colonial industry and they wanted out from under. So yes, it was largely a rich white man's revolution. Fortunately for those early plutocrats, there were enough other abuses to get them wide based support for it.

[Fluke a Snooker]

47. Standards are ALWAYS absolute in nature, and must be judged as such

I don't buy the "moral relativity" argument. Slavery and racism is, has been, and always will be, reprehensible, and must always be called out and judged on its individual impact, which is severe in all cases. Since 1492, it has been mostly white males who have been in the wrong, and unfortunately it may take decades or even centuries to fully wipe the slate clean, if ever.

[dsc]

11. Mary Jackson or Katherine Johnson

both were featured in Hidden Figures. Mary Jackson has the most Virginian connections while Katherine Johnson was the most seminal for the space program and did work at Langley.

[MLAA]

12. How about Jackson-Johnson Highway!

[dsc]

33. that could work

[marylandblue]

13. There is a Lee Highway in Northern Va

Are they going to rename that too?

[underpants]

26. Arlington has asked to rename both

http://wtop.com/arlington/2017/08/arlington-seeks-permission-rename-jefferson-davis-lee-highways/

[FarPoint]

14. Give it a Game of Thrones name....

I'm open to suggestions

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

15. Cathay Williams

Here's an appropriate Civil War figure:

Cathay Williams (September 1844 – 1893) was an American soldier who enlisted in the United States Army under the pseudonym William Cathay. She was the first African-American woman to enlist, and the only documented to serve in the United States Army posing as a man.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathay_Williams

[OldHippieChick]

38. I love this idea. What a

wonderful example and hero

[underpants]

16. Oh crap. It's about to get really nasty here in Richmond

Hopefully not violent nasty but they are going to come out of woodwork on this. Mayor Stoney said his special panel should consider plans for taking down the monuments on Monument Ave. That's puuuure OOOOLD Richmond. You should have seen the fight back in the 90's when they added a monument to Arther Ashe (native Richmonder who took off right after high school for UCLA) to Monument Ave. it was a real shitstorm BUT it's still there on Monument and Roseneath.

I have two funny stories about the Ashe monument.

[madinmaryland]

18. Sherman Highway, though that would work much better in Georgia.

[Oubaas]

21. How About...

I like "Opechancanough Memorial Highway".

And if that won't fly how about, "Nat Turner Memorial Highway" instead?

[BamaRefugee]

22. Smithfield Hamway

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Would "the Underground Highway" be too confusing? (nt)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

24. Roadie McRoadface?

Or is that too British?

[underpants]

27. Actually it's only Alexandria. Not the whole thing.

[onethatcares]

29. Appomatics Parkway

from here to surrender in one line.

[onethatcares]

32. I am so sorry

should have been Appomattox.

[gratuitous]

34. Loving Highway?

Named for the interracial couple that got the Supreme Court to rule anti-miscegenation laws to be unconstitutional.

[VMA131Marine]

35. Beat me to it! Good one!

[flibbitygiblets]

36. +1

[madaboutharry]

39. Yes,

The Mildred and Richard Loving Memorial Highway.

[marybourg]

40. Yes! Remember "Virginia is for Lovers"?

What could be more appropriate?

[Greybnk48]

42. Love it! Loving is perfect! n/t

[struggle4progress]

41. Irene Morgan Highway

... In 1944, the 27-year-old Irene Morgan was returning to Baltimore, Maryland, after visiting her mother in Virginia. She was arrested and jailed while traveling in Virginia on an interstate Greyhound bus for refusing the bus driver's order to sit in a segregated section . Although interstate transportation was desegregated under federal law, the state enforced racially segregated seating within its borders. When Morgan refused to change her seat, the bus driver stopped in Middlesex County, Virginia, and summoned the sheriff. When he tried to arrest Morgan, she tore up the arrest warrant, kicked the sheriff in the groin, and fought with the deputy who tried to pull her off the bus. She was convicted of violating state law for segregation on buses and other public transportation. Morgan pleaded guilty to the charge of resisting arrest and was fined $100. However, she refused the guilty plea for violating Virginia's segregation law. Morgan appealed her case with the aid of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. After exhausting appeals in state courts,[5] she and her lawyers took her case to the federal courts, reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1946, the justices agreed to hear the case ... The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-1 in 1946 that Virginia's state law enforcing segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Morgan

[SoCalDem]

45. HIGHWAY 1

which it really is...US highway1

[Downtown Hound]

46. Heather Heyer Highway. n/t