Officially, Fairfax County doesn’t have a Lee Highway or Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway anymore, but months after the names were dropped, they can still be seen on street signs throughout both corridors.
By the end of this month, that should no longer be the case — at least for smaller signs, the Fairfax County Department of Transportation says. A contractor is replacing the small blue signs at street corners with ones identifying the roadways as Route 29 and Route 50, respectively.
Fairfax County has shed another vestige of its Confederate past.
Oak Marr Park, which is home to the Oak Marr RECenter and Golf Center Complex, was renamed “Oakmont” earlier this month by the Fairfax County Park Authority board, which approved the change at its Nov. 8 meeting.
Fairfax County can officially retire Lee Highway and Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway as its names for routes 29 and 50.
The highways will be renamed after their route numbers effective July 5, the county announced today (Thursday).
Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors is no stranger to renaming things, from roads to magisterial districts. But now, the board is leading a push not to rename a site associated with slavery.
In a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday (March 7), Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck raised the topic of Fort Belvoir’s potential renaming. The base is named for the Belvoir plantation that once occupied the site.
Fairfax County has opted not to move forward with a potential Sully District renaming.
Sully District Supervisor Kathy Smith announced at yesterday’s board meeting that she believes “the best step forward at this time is to retain” the name of the magisterial district, which encompasses the southwestern corner of Fairfax County.
The public engagement process regarding a possible name change for the Sully District is kicking off next month.
A virtual meeting to discuss changing renaming the district is set for tomorrow (Thursday) at 7 p.m. A brief presentation by county staff will be followed by an online forum. Interested participants can email sully@fairfaxcounty.gov to receive a meeting link.
A formal vote won’t come for another month, but several Fairfax County supervisors indicated support yesterday (Tuesday) for using routes 29 and 50, respectively, as the official names for the roads known for now as Lee and Lee-Jackson Memorial highways.
The Board of Supervisors directed county staff by a 9-1 vote to prepare a resolution for its next meeting on Sept. 13 endorsing Route 29 and Route 50 as the new names after a year-long review process that included a community task force and public surveys.
A report recommending that Fairfax County rename its portions of Route 29 and Route 50 will go before county leaders tomorrow (Tuesday), even as concerns about the financial impact linger.
Compiled by the 26-person Confederate Names Task Force, the report details the process used to determine that Lee Highway and Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway should get new names and recommends five possible replacements for each road:
A task force of nearly 30 people has recommended renaming two highways in Fairfax County, following concerns that their invocation of the Confederacy runs counter to the county’s goal of creating an inclusive environment.
After months of meetings and debate, the Confederate Names Task Force voted 20-6 yesterday (Tuesday) in favor of a change for Lee Highway (also known as Route 29) and 19-6 for Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway (Route 50), with at-large member Tim Thompson abstaining.
Though they have cropped up with increasing regularity both locally and nationally in recent years, conversations about how to handle symbolic reminders of the Confederacy remain as emotionally charged as ever.
That was evident in the most recent meeting of Fairfax County’s Confederate Names Task Force, which has been charged with determining whether the county should rename Lee and Lee-Jackson Memorial highways.
