Riviera Beach, Florida changes "Old Dixie Highway" to "President Barack Obama Highway."

[lame54]

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/12/crowd-cheers-old-dixie-highway-gets-new

Riviera Beach, Florida changes "Old Dixie Highway" to "President Barack Obama Highway."

Since the Confederate Flag controversy, cities across our nation are purging other symbols of our vile "heritage" of slavery, violence and racism as well. On Thursday, a cheering crowd gathered in Riviera Beach, Fla. to watch city workers remove the sign for "Old Dixie Highway" and replace it with a sign for the newly renamed "President Barack Obama Highway." The Sun Sentinel reports the City Council voted to rename Old Dixie Highway, one of Riviera Beach's main thoroughfares, back in August:

It is the second road in Palm Beach County to be named in honor of the 44th president, county officials said. Two years ago, Pahokee in western Palm Beach County renamed East First Street to Barack Obama Boulevard.

In a strong statement, Riviera Beach Mayor Thomas Masters told WPTV 5 the name "Old Dixie Highway" is an inappropriate relic from the slavery and Jim Crow eras:

"[The Old Dixie Highway is] symbolic of racism, symbolic of the Klan, symbolic of cross burnings and today we are stepping up to a new day, a new era, and replacing Old Dixie with Barack Obama, who represents change."

[misterhighwasted]

1. Wow! Kind of amazed to hear this. I've driven that highway a hundred times &

Old Dixie is indeed a relic of a name who's time has passed.
Good name change.

[VanillaRhapsody]

2. Me too...

I used to live on it...though further north...

[misterhighwasted]

3. I'm visiting Singer Island in Jan. I hope they have it changed by then. I'll drive on it just to be

..on the President Barack Obama Highway.! Cool

[RockaFowler]

12. They changed it yesterday!!

[misterhighwasted]

13. Lovely sight. Thanks for the pic! I'll be taking a drive on President Barack Obama Highway.

Maybe honk the horn in his honor!
Haa I love this.

[DFW]

4. Normally, I'm against using the names of living persons for that, BUT

As there is still a "President George Bush Highway" in Dallas and the supremely offensive "George Bush Center For Intelligence" in Langley, VA, right down the road from where my brother lives, and of course, the worst insult of all, Ronald Reagan National Airport across the Potomac from Washington, DC (those of us who grew up there still call it "National Airport" and refuse to use any other name)------well, given that Republicans have made it a new habit to name things after living Republicans in the most in-your-face manner imaginable, I no longer see any reason to object to an Obama Highway. In fact I wouldn't object to there being one in every State of the Union.

[csziggy]

5. The "Dixie Highway" was named by a real estate developer from the North

And was promoted as a route for people from the Mid-West to travel to Florida.

The Dixie Highway, an idea of Carl G. Fisher of the Lincoln Highway Association, was organized in early December 1914 in Chattanooga.[1] On April 3, 1915, governors of the interested states met at Chattanooga, and each selected two commissioners to lay out the route from Chicago to Miami.[2] On May 22, 1915, the commission decided on a split route in order to serve more communities. The route left Chicago to the south via Danville, Illinois and turned east to Indianapolis, where it split. The west branch headed south through Tennessee via Louisville and Nashville to Chattanooga, Tennessee, while the east route went east from Indianapolis to Dayton, Ohio before turning south via Cincinnati; Lexington, Kentucky; and Knoxville, Tennessee; to Chattanooga. Two alternate routes were included between Chattanooga and Atlanta, and again between Atlanta and Macon, Georgia. Finally, between Macon and Jacksonville, Florida, the west route went south to Tallahassee, Florida before turning east, while the east route had yet to be defined in detail. From Jacksonville, the route followed the east coast south to Miami along the John Anderson Highway. The commission voted to invite Michigan and to extend a branch of the east route from Dayton north to Detroit via Toledo, as well as to study a loop around Lake Michigan and a western route between Tallahassee and Miami.[3][4][5]



Within a week, Michigan agreed to construct a loop around the Lower Peninsula, passing via South Bend, Mackinaw City, Detroit, and Toledo.[6] Detroit became the northern end of the eastern division, with the old route to Indianapolis becoming a connecting link.[4] In early April 1916, the commission approved the route between Macon and Jacksonville via Savannah, Georgia, and designated the more direct route via Waycross, Georgia as the central division.[7] At the urging of locals,[8] the eastern division was realigned to a more direct path northwest from Milledgeville, Georgia to Atlanta over the "Old Capitol Route", bypassing Macon, and the old eastern division via McDonough, Jackson, and Macon was removed from the system in early July 1916.[9] By early 1917, the western division had been modified in Florida to go southeast from Tallahassee via Kissimmee and Bartow to the eastern division at Jupiter;[10] the old Tallahassee–Jacksonville route became another connection.[4] The Carolina division, connecting to the eastern division at Knoxville, Tennessee and Waynesboro, Georgia, was approved in mid-May 1918.[11] By mid-1919, a short piece on Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan became part of the eastern division of the highway, which was extended north from Detroit to Mackinaw City and across the Straits of Mackinac.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Highway

The name and the history of the road have absolutely nothing to do with the history of slavery associated with "Dixie."

[awoke_in_2003]

9. The word Dixie

is totally part of it. If you can't see that, you are probably a white southerner.

[csziggy]

10. I don't object to the name being changed - but it is part of the history of the route

Has the name of the Dixie Highway been changed everywhere in the North? It STARTED in Chicago, Illinois. The name was given by a man from Indiana.

Actually, there is STILL a Dixie Highway going south from Bedford, Indiana; running north from Pontiac, Michigan; between Calumet and Chicago Heights in Illinois - but Southern states get castigated for not changing the name of the road? By the way, those selections are from a quick search of Google Maps. I am sure there are plenty of other stretches of the historic roadway that still retain the original name.

My point is that the name was selected by a developer who wanted to sell swamp land in Florida. The name "Dixie" was chosen for the connotations of the "old South" and was used as a selling point - which I could see would be a big seller for white bigots from the north.

I attended a talk by a man who attempted to trace the original route of the Dixie Highway in Florida. He was unable to find most of it. In fact I believe he said in all of Florida he could only locate less than one hundred miles that retained the original name. The quick Google search I did found far more than one hundred miles in the Northern states it ran through.

So before you Northerners get all up in my face about the historic names that have not yet been changed, check your own neighborhoods.

[awoke_in_2003]

11. I am against the use of such words or symbols

regardless of their geographical location

[csziggy]

14. So "Dixie Highway" as a symbol of Northern real estate speculation is also offensive?

[misterhighwasted]

15. I lived in various northern States all but 6 yrs of my long ..

..adventurous life and have never ever seen a two-track dirt road or highway named Dixie.

Regardless, I am proud Pres Obama was given this honor.
very cool

[csziggy]

17. Just google "Dixie Highway" with the state's names

And you will get addresses for locations on the highways that retain the name. If you go to Google Maps and do the same, that will give you actual locations along the segments of Dixie Highway that still exist.

I'm glad the name for that one segment in Florida was changed to honor President Obama!

[Cal Carpenter]

19. It is still called Dixie Highway throughout parts of Michigan

[MrScorpio]

6. I'd love for them to do the same thing here in Michigan. nt

[AwakeAtLast]

7. Excellent!

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. That's pretty stupid.

"Dixie" refers to the South generally, not to the Confederacy (the song "Dixie" predates the Civil War, and the name comes from the Mason-Dixon line). And I disagree with naming anything after politicians who are not only still alive but still in office.

[csziggy]

16. As a Southerner I agree with the fact that "Dixie" has negative connotations

So removing it from locations and general usage is fine with me. The history of the term and its various usages should be remembered, though, the same as the history of the other symbols that have been used for different purposes should never been forgotten.

The world should NEVER forget what a swastika stands for and the history that has made that symbol abhorrent to most people. We should also not forget what pointy white hoods and robes stand for - though it seems some (the fraternity that used them as "Christmas" costumes) have forgotten or never knew.

The term "Dixie" came to be used for the Southern states but it became popular because of the black faced minstrel shows in the 1850s. That song was taken up as an anthem by the Confederacy so is forever associated with them. While the original song may have been written by black freemen living in the Norths (the origin is still contested) the eventual usage and meaning now give the word connotations that are just as abhorrent as a swastika.

Symbols are important, words are important. But in order to use them properly one must know their history and meanings.

[Jim Lane]

18. Lincoln might disagree with this

According to the Wikipedia article about the song, quoting Carl Sandburg's biography of Lincoln:

On 10 April 1865, one day after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, Lincoln addressed a White House crowd:

I propose now closing up by requesting you play a certain piece of music or a tune. I thought "Dixie" one of the best tunes I ever heard ... I had heard that our adversaries over the way had attempted to appropriate it. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it ... I presented the question to the Attorney-General, and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize ... I ask the Band to give us a good turn upon it.[80]

If the song was captured by the Union victory in the Civil War, then arguably the term as a designation for the region was also wrested away from the defenders of slavery and became the property of all Americans.

[Eleanors38]

20. We called it the Dixie Die-way, owing to the numerous car crashes on it.