Goodbye to Dixie Highway?

[hbelkins]

https://dnyuz.com/2020/01/20/weve-got-to-change-this-has-dixie-highway-reached-the-end-of-the-road/?fbclid=IwAR1y4VuXkOx-lBLUwpGH3UmpgTIn0rmyXrP7mpHg-z6CjP5VRyywYfmmsy0

I've never considered the term "Dixie" to be racist nor ever made any connotations to slavery from it. To me, it's a term of unknown origin (see the story for reference) to an area of the country, the same as "Snow Belt," "Sun Belt," "Ohio Valley," "Appalachia," "Great Plains," "Eastern Seaboard," or even "Rust Belt." I understand (but do not agree with) the sentiment behind renaming roads named after Lee, Davis, etc., but not this.

[tradephoric]

"You people"  pushing to get these street names changed are getting out of hand.  Of course that phrase has racial undertones and you would be labeled a racist for saying it.  Never mind an Atlantic article was arguing how the phrase "you people"  was more gender inclusive than "you guys" .  In this super sensitive world, or at the very least in a world full of feigned outrage, you can't say or do anything without being labeled racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

The Problem With "˜Hey Guys'
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/08/guys-gender-neutral/568231/

[Max Rockatansky]

I've never really associated the Dixie Highway was more than anything than an Auto Trail.  Given that I'm most familiar with it from growing up in Michigan I don't even really consider it exclusively "Southern."   I was always under the impression that the term "Dixie"  just was a term to denote Southern States as a geographic area...am I missing something?  Either way there are so many signed segments of the Dixie Highway in Florida I can't imagine that it would be possible to legislate them all to different names.  More so the Dixie Highway has a pretty strong following among Auto Trail buffs (myself included regarding Florida) that tend to keep the memory of alignments going. 

[kevinb1994]

The Dixie Highway is even noted as being interchangeable with the Lincoln Highway, as per the LHA's map on their official website.

[GaryV]

What about Winn-Dixie stores?

[hotdogPi]

[Max Rockatansky]

Similarly there has been some recent backlash against El Camino Real being signed in California by way of the Mission Bells.  The contention stems from how the Spanish conquered native lands and attempted to convert them.  Interestingly the Mission Bells were largely an invention of the American El Camino Real promoters who used it to sign the highway (I'd argue an early Auto Trail) in 1906.  The sentiments used by descending groups about "outdated history"  is very similar to what is seen in the article with the Dixie Highway. 

[tradephoric]

What about Winn-Dixie stores?

Yep, Winn-Dixie's headquarters is in Jacksonville, Florida and there are 5 Winn-Dixies within a 3 mile radius of Hallandale Beach, Florida.  Winn-Dixie co-founder James Davis and his wife Florence were long time supporters of historically black colleges and have a residence hall named after them at Bethune-Cookman University.

[mgk920]

( Image snippage )

Or Dixie Cups.



Mike

[US 89]

I've never associated the word Dixie with slavery or racism or whatever - the first place I think of when I hear Dixie is Washington County, Utah.

[Big John]

Or is he just whistling Dixie?

[roadman65]

In Riveria Beach, FL the Dixie Highway was renamed after President Barack Obama ironically.   

However northwest of Ocala there is a county named Dixie in the Sunshine State.  It has Cross City as its seat and another city called Old Town as the county is as rural as it can get.  Are the few people that live there going to have to settle on a new name for their county as well?

I think this is getting out of hand! 

[Beltway]

The most straightforward explanation for the South-Dixie connection concerns the Mason and Dixon Line, a boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that was drawn in 1767 by English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.  The line was originally crafted to settle a border dispute between the two colonies, but it later became an informal demarcation point between the southern slave states and the free states to the north.  With this in mind, it's likely that "Dixie"  and "Dixieland"  first emerged as slang terms to refer to the territory south of Jeremiah Dixon's boundary line.

[GaryV]

The other derivation I've heard is that it was taken from $10 notes in New Orleans.  They had the French word "Dix" on them, and the notes became known as Dixies, which then spread to encompass the South. 

Either explanation (Dix or Mason-Dixon) involves something relatively local spreading to a whole region.

[Terry Shea]

I thought Dixie was a woman's name.

[ozarkman417]

All billboards for Branson's Dixie Stampede have been changed to say Dolly Parton's Stampede, and I imagine the same applies to Pigeon Forge as well.
It was hard for the gigantic cross near Branson (JCT US 65 & 160) to be constructed for similar reasons.

[thspfc]

oMg tHiS wOrD cOuLd pOsSiBlY bE iNtErPeReTeD aS rAcIsT bAn iT fRoM tHe eNgLiSh lAnGuaGe!

[roadman65]

All billboards for Branson's Dixie Stampede have been changed to say Dolly Parton's Stampede, and I imagine the same applies to Pigeon Forge as well.
It was hard for the gigantic cross near Branson (JCT US 65 & 160) to be constructed for similar reasons.

In Florida they had one that closed completely.  One rich developer bought the land it was on, and then the recession came and it never got used for a while.  There was signs promoting a pizza parlor (the World's largest) but that never materialized.  I think it opened for one day and the owner called it quits and now the outlet mall across the street bought the land and expanded the shopping center instead.

Though I do not think it had to do with the name, I do find it interesting that it never got tested on this.

[Max Rockatansky]

So by the logic of removing all references to "Dixie"  wouldn't that mean that Dixie Chicks would have to be rebranded also?  I had to look it up, but surprisingly the Dixie Chicks are still around.

[roadman65]

Or is the famous song I Wish I Were in Dixie (part of the Elvis trilogy the King did when alive in concert) going to have to be changed?  Also what about Suwanee River by Stephen Foster?  Does it not use the line "Blacky" in it? 

[hbelkins]

All billboards for Branson's Dixie Stampede have been changed to say Dolly Parton's Stampede, and I imagine the same applies to Pigeon Forge as well.
It was hard for the gigantic cross near Branson (JCT US 65 & 160) to be constructed for similar reasons.

Or that could be marketing for Dolly's branding, since I don't think it was widely known that she owned that venue. Didn't she just recently buy it (as in the past few years)?

[Max Rockatansky]

How is the Dixie Overland Highway getting a pass in all this?   The Dixie Overland Highway didn't even leave the sunbelt region, so therefore it is more Dixie than the Dixie Highway. 

[Henry]

I agree, Dixie is a reference of all the land south of the Mason-Dixon Line. My guess is that Mason lived on the north side of the border, and Dixon on the south side of it, and therefore, it's how Dixie got its name.

[1995hoo]

This isn't the first time this sort of issue has come up. Back in 1999, some people were upset with Chief Justice Rehnquist for leading a sing-along at a judicial conference in which one of the selected songs was "Dixie." Some prominent black leaders complained that the song is offensive because the lyrics allegedly seem nostalgic for the days of slavery (note: I don't know the words). The Chief Justice never commented publicly about it, per his standard practice, but some of his papers made available after his death addressed the controversy. A friend wrote to him saying, "Hurray for you! All of our history is important, whether it fits in with the current political correctness or not. You above all people ought to take cognizance of the varied strains of our history which merge in the mosaic that is America today." Rehnquist's reply expressed thanks for the "encouraging letter" and said, "I really feel that it does not bode well for race relations in this country if people constantly strain to find some basis for taking offense."

This was almost 21 years ago. Certainly it seems the habit of straining to find some basis for taking offense has just become all the more prevalent in the interim.

[SP Cook]

Mason and Dixon were both English, brought in for the survey and both returned to England after finishing. 

The "Land of Dixes" , as coming from the French word for 10, DIX, on Louisiana state money, is the more likely origin of the word. 

In any event, "Dixie"  simply is a word for "the South"  and has no racist connotation.