Goodbye to Dixie Highway?

[MikeTheActuary]

Now here's a fun question:  if "Dixie" is racist, then how would one classify "Dixieland Jazz"?

[kphoger]

I also think the name Black & Decker is racist.  That should be changed.

I had to look it up, but surprisingly the Dixie Chicks are still around.

All bands are kept around until such time as they can open a theater in Branson.

[webny99]

I guess I'm on the "I thought 'Dixie' was just another word for the Deep South and had no idea it was racist" bandwagon.

[GaryV]

I guess I'm on the "I thought 'Dixie' was just another word for the Deep South and had no idea it was racist" bandwagon.

I think people - like those in Miami - are confusing two things. 

I agree that Dixie as a name for the South is not in and of itself racist - no more than calling it "The South" would be racist.  The fact that racist things happened there (and are still happening there, as well as everywhere else) does not make that term racist.  Nor are all the things named for Dixie, like the highway, inherently racist.

The song Dixie, however, does have racist connections.  It came out of blackface minstrel shows.  It was considered an unofficial anthem for the Confederacy, and was used by Confederate troops when marching. 

[kphoger]

From the arricle...

In July, Modesto Abety-Gutierrez was driving on South Dixie Highway in Miami on the way to drop his 16-year-old granddaughter, Isabella Banos, off at a friend's house. When Isabella noticed the sign, she asked her grandfather why a name that symbolized slavery was still being used. ... Mr. Abety-Gutierrez, the founding president of the Children's Trust in Miami, sent an email to the 13 Miami-Dade commissioners. "We've got to change this,"  he wrote. "I hope you agree."

Maybe the sixteen-year-old was wrong.  Geez.

[cwf1701]

And if we get rid of anything with the word "Dixie", why don't we tell fans of a certain dead mall near Chicago they have to refer to it as "Harvey Square Mall"? (the Mall best known for the car chase in the 1980 movie "The Blues Brothers" was filmed.)

[Buck87]

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 does. I drove through Pigeon Forge last week, and now that you've mentioned it I do remember seeing that new name.

[theline]

The Dixie Way name survives at least one place in the North, in Roseland, IN, the small town just northwest of the Notre Dame campus:
Dixie-Way by Tom Heline, on Flickr

[GaryV]

Dixie Highway exists as a road name in at least 3 Michigan counties:  Monroe, Oakland and Saginaw.

[Max Rockatansky]

Dixie Highway exists as a road name in at least 3 Michigan counties:  Monroe, Oakland and Saginaw.

It does in Illinois too.  Most states the Dixie Highway was aligned through have segments that are signed on street blades. 

[NWI_Irish96]

The Dixie Way name survives at least one place in the North, in Roseland, IN, the small town just northwest of the Notre Dame campus:
Dixie-Way by Tom Heline, on Flickr

There are a couple different routes running from as far north as Michigan all the way down to Florida known as Dixie Hwy.  The one that runs through Indiana enters from the north and goes to Rochester along the original routing of US 31, then IN 25 to Logansport, IN 29/US 421 to Indianapolis, IN 37 to Paoli, and then US 150 to Kentucky.

The segment in Roseland is the only one in Indiana I'm aware of that is still referred to as Dixie Hwy.

[Konza]

Dixie Highway exists as a road name in at least 3 Michigan counties:  Monroe, Oakland and Saginaw.

It does in Illinois too.  Most states the Dixie Highway was aligned through have segments that are signed on street blades.

There's even a "Dixie Highway Beer Trail" in the south suburbs of Chicago.

[SSR_317]

There are a couple different routes running from as far north as Michigan all the way down to Florida known as Dixie Hwy.  The one that runs through Indiana enters from the north and goes to Rochester along the original routing of US 31, then IN 25 to Logansport, IN 29/US 421 to Indianapolis, IN 37 to Paoli, and then US 150 to Kentucky.

The segment in Roseland is the only one in Indiana I'm aware of that is still referred to as Dixie Hwy.

So the portion of US 421 was BOTH the Dixie Highway AND Michigan Road?

[NWI_Irish96]

There are a couple different routes running from as far north as Michigan all the way down to Florida known as Dixie Hwy.  The one that runs through Indiana enters from the north and goes to Rochester along the original routing of US 31, then IN 25 to Logansport, IN 29/US 421 to Indianapolis, IN 37 to Paoli, and then US 150 to Kentucky.

The segment in Roseland is the only one in Indiana I'm aware of that is still referred to as Dixie Hwy.

So the portion of US 421 was BOTH the Dixie Highway AND Michigan Road?

Yes, from LaSalle/Michigan in South Bend to Washington/West in Indianapolis, Dixie Hwy was concurrent with the Michigan Road.

[Max Rockatansky]

Dixie Highway exists as a road name in at least 3 Michigan counties:  Monroe, Oakland and Saginaw.

It does in Illinois too.  Most states the Dixie Highway was aligned through have segments that are signed on street blades.

There's even a "Dixie Highway Beer Trail" in the south suburbs of Chicago.

I've actually been on it, one of the few times I didn't mind a old highway trip where I wasn't the driver:

http://dixiehighwaybrewerytrail.com/

[GaryV]

If I recall correctly, the western leg of the Dixie Highway was concurrent with the West Michigan Pike, at least in portions.

There were a number of these concurrencies between various auto trails.  This was part of the reason leading to the numbering systems we have.

[Finrod]

Stan Freberg anticipated political correctness decades before the term was coined, with his 1957 _Elderly Man River_: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLlTlYfqQV4

[1995hoo]

There's a Dixie Drive in Dayton; it intersects the famous (on this forum) Needmore Road. The cemetery in which my wife's parents are buried is on Dixie Drive.

[silveradoman298]

Would it make everything better if we erased history and removed every name, statue, flag, grave marker, etc. that there ever was a South or a Civil War or Slavery??

NO

People would just move on to the next thing to bitch about. Understand history, respect history, learn from history. Don't forget history and don't erase it.

[Flint1979]

Back when it was still standing I had to venture out to find the old Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, IL. Not too pleasant of an area.

[Flint1979]

Dixie Hwy in Saginaw and Oakland Counties is part of the Saginaw Trail. It starts as Genesee Avenue in Saginaw, eventually ending up leading into Woodward Avenue in Detroit. In Genesee County it's known as Saginaw Road. It was also part of US-10 but now part of M-1, US-24 and M-54.

[kphoger]

Understand history, respect history, learn from history. Don't forget history and don't erase it.

This.

Labeling any person or idea as only bad is a fundamentally flawed way of looking at the world, too.  Our nation's history and culture is made up of more than just racism and slavery.  The prevalent knee-jerk reaction to anything related to southern history is to make it all about one certain thing.  Doing that removes the opportunity to learn about and discuss any other aspect of the culture.  I fear we're now living in a society that is not just unwilling but also incapable of understanding or evaluating the world through any lens of worldview other than their own.  CS Lewis, I think, would have a lot to say about how we tend to view our current modern society as the pinnacle of enlightenment and tend deride those of the past as inferior and worthy of contempt.

[MikieTimT]

So, if we erase the history that caused institutionalized problems for certain members of society, then will those problems be erased as well?

[kphoger]

So, if we erase the history that caused institutionalized problems for certain members of society, then will those problems be erased as well?

You didn't go quite far enough.

If you don't erase that history, then you are participating in the problem.

[sparker]

If the term "Dixie" indeed stems from the Mason-Dixon Line, shouldn't the area to the north be termed "Macy?"