A Virginia City Is Dragging Its Feet Renaming Confederate-Named Streets

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Local residents in Alexandria, Virginia are pushing the local government to rename streets honoring the leaders of the Confederacy. The local government already has a plan to find new names and change the signage gradually. Though, it could be decades until all of the street names are removed.

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Today is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the proclamation freeing slaves in Texas during the aftermath of the American Civil War. The Union Army had to liberate slaves across the Confederacy by force, using President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation as a legal pretext. Texas was the last state reached by Union forces. The Army of the Trans-Mississippi, the Confederate military formation in Texas, surrendered two months after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Regardless of the personal beliefs of individual generals or soldiers, the Confederate Army was fighting to protect their states’ entrenched practice of slavery against the United States. They were traitors by definition, undeserving of any monument in the country they waged war against.

The City of Alexandria announced in January that it began the process to eliminate all of the Confederate-honoring street names. According to ALXnow, Mayor Justin Wilson said the city should aim to rename three streets every year. However, it would take 20 years to rename the roughly 60 streets identified by the city. Mayor Wilson said:

“Last year, I talked on the dais about a process and a deliberate schedule to identify street names in our city that really were designed as a permanent protest against the civil rights movement and growing political power for African Americans in our city. Those places and those honors have no place in our city.”

The best way to honor those who died in the Civil War is to remember why the conflict was truly fought. It was written in the Declaration of Independence and mentioned by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address. We are all created equal. Juneteenth is a celebration of the United States taking one massive leap closer to that goal.