Coming from the Northeast, I still have a lot to adjust to when it comes to Southern culture. I can handle drinking sweet tea and saying “NOVA,” but I was thoroughly unprepared and offended when I learned of the existence of the Jefferson Davis Highway. Davis is undeserving — to say the least — of this kind of memorialization. This highway needs to be renamed immediately.
The Jefferson Davis Highway is a transcontinental highway that was proposed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913. Though the highway has never been completed and several segments along it go by other names, long stretches of Route 1 are called the Jefferson Davis Highway today. Davis, though he served as Secretary of War and as a Mississippi senator before the Civil War, is most infamous (but apparently in Virginia, famous) for his role as president of the Confederate States of America. Though we often memorialize historical figures by naming landmarks after them, in this case the person in question symbolizes the disenfranchisement, degradation and enslavement of an entire population of people; and naming a highway after Davis suggests that we are proud of this.
Unfortunately, some Americans are proud. The United Daughters of the Confederacy is still an active organization, and according to their website, they have more than 2,500 members just in their Virginia chapters. And this is not the only Confederate or white supremacist group in the state: the Ku Klux Klan and groups like the League of the South, which is devoted to the neo-Confederate movement, both have locations in Virginia. In addition to some of the more subtle racial tensions that exist today, there are actually still people who support the Confederacy and believe in white supremacy. Naming a highway for Jefferson Davis gives their movement and their racist beliefs legitimacy, and as a society we should not be content to let that happen.
Students at the University should naturally find some hypocrisy in my frustration. After all, our University was founded by a very prominent slave owner, yet we celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s legacy. Of course, we should voice outrage at Jefferson’s racism, but Davis’ impact on our country is far more negative than Jefferson’s. If we did away with every monument named after a racist, sexist or homophobic figure in our history, we would have very few landmarks left. The difference here is that Davis led the fight to divide our country in half, mainly (though not entirely) on the basis of maintaining slavery. While Jefferson personally has a sordid past, his contributions to society — though of course they do not in any way excuse his actions — are far greater than Davis’. When we look at Jefferson as a historical figure, there is more there than just a slave owner, though that is by far his worst flaw; Davis’ biggest contribution to American history was his role as president of the Confederacy.
Davis was also a fierce opponent of Reconstruction, which was the attempt to reunite the country and to integrate newly freed slaves into a more equal society. It is viewed by most historians as a failure, since racial inequality remained rampant following it. Davis bemoaned the few achievements Reconstruction had; he was pleased about its failure and supported the escalation of white supremacy that followed it. What this shows us is that Davis did not reform his beliefs after his loss in the Civil War — he remained, until his death, irredeemable.
It is true that Davis’ personal beliefs were widespread in his time; he is not the only offender in our history, not by a long shot. But he was a primary and famous offender, and even if he was not the worst offender, he is one of the most symbolic, especially to those that would have us return to the racial caste system of pre-Civil War America.
Renaming this highway is therefore an ethical obligation. If the highway had been named for Davis during or before the Civil War, renaming it might suggest that we are attempting to hide from our past. But this highway was named for him in 1913, and by then we knew enough to know that Davis is undeserving of this kind of honor. The fact that this project was approved at that time, and that it has not yet been renamed, belittles the seriousness and tragedy of slavery in America.
We do not yet live in an egalitarian society, and there are far too many modern-day Confederate sympathizers for us to treat the naming of this highway as no big deal. If we want to progress as a country beyond the awful sentiments that have divided us for so long, it starts with the condemnation of those who have propagated those sentiments, and Jefferson Davis was undeniably one of them. Removing his name from this highway sends the message that we don’t tolerate his bigotry, or the bigotry of his current supporters. Even if its impact is only slight, removing his name from this highway is a step towards a more tolerant society.
Dani Bernstein is a Viewpoint columnist for The Cavalier Daily.
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