Alternate Names Suggested For Lee Highway, Lee Jackson Memorial Highway In Fairfax County

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Alternate names for Lee Highway and Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway were presented as part of a renaming recommendation to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the board received a report from the Confederate Names Task Force, which was asked to recommend if the two highways should be renamed in Fairfax County. Both highways reference Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway also references Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.

The 30-member task force was appointed in July 2021 by the Board of Supervisors and met 11 times. On Nov. 30, the task force voted 20-6 to recommend renaming Lee Highway and 19-5 with one abstention to recommend renaming Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway.

Task force Chairperson Evelyn Spain told the board some members felt changing the names would "erase history." Other members recognized some parts of history are not widely recognized, including the contributions of African Americans in the Civil War.

"It's not the intention to erase history, but to bring forth equity and inclusion and all of our decisions on how we are presented as a county in Fairfax," Spain told the board.

On Dec. 13, the task force reviewed lists of possible alternate names and voted for their top choices. The top alternate names for Lee Highway include Cardinal Highway, Route/Highway 29, Langston Boulevard/Highway, Lincoln-Douglass Highway, and Fairfax Boulevard/Highway. The top five alternate names for Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway include Little River Turnpike, Unity Highway, Route 50, Fairfax Boulevard, and Blue & Gray Highway.

The task force received public input through a survey, emails, phone calls, social media, letters and community listening sessions. The survey found 11,652 want to keep the name of Lee Highway and 8,032 want to change the name. For Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway, 10,904 want to keep the name and 7,960 want to change the name. The most popular alternate name choices suggested in the survey were Route 29 and Route 50.

"Although the results came back with a majority of respondents who did not want to change the names, it should be noted it was an unscientific survey," noted Spain in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. "There were limited controls in place to prevent people from filling out the survey multiple times and there were no restrictions that would disallow input from respondents outside of the County."

Aside from recommending the name changes and possible replacement names, the task force asked the board to consider financial assistance to residents and businesses.

"The taskforce recognizes that if the board approves the recommendation, there will be impositions upon the residents, the businesses and the communities along these major corridors," Spain told the board. "So it is our hope that the Board of Supervisors will consider providing some type of financial assistance to those directly affected by the potential name change."

Chairman Jeff McKay said before any decision is made, board members want to know the impacts of the potential renamings and how those impacts would be mitigated. The Fairfax County Department of Transportation has launched a survey and set up a dedicated email address (dotconfederatenamestaskforce@fairfaxcounty.gov) to gather feedback from residents and businesses in the highway corridors. Feedback results will be shared with the board's Transportation Committee in June.

When asked about route numbers, Fairfax County Department of Transportation director Tom Biesiadny said the route numbers of Lee Highway and Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway would not change.

Read the task force's full recommendation report here.

Neighboring localities have changed names of highways with Confederate references. In summer 2021, Arlington County's board voted to rename its section of Lee Highway (Route 29) as Langston Boulevard. In December 2021, Loudoun County's board voted to rename its section of Route 50 from John Mosby Highway to Little River Turnpike. The board will also rename Harry Byrd Highway (Route 7) to Leesburg Pike due to Harry Byrd's history of opposing integration of schools.