Miami’s Dixie Highway Will Become Harriet Tubman Highway

Earlier this week, commissioners in Florida’s Miami-Dade County unanimously voted to rename parts of the Dixie Highway after Harriet Tubman.

CNN reports that Modesto Abety, former CEO of the county’s Children’s Trust, had written a letter explaining how his granddaughter had asked him why "Dixie"—a word referring to the Confederate states, south of the Mason-Dixon line—was still featured prominently on highway signage. She suggested it might be more fitting to rename the roads after Harriet Tubman, instead. Inspired by the letter, Commissioner Dennis Moss began the process of doing just that.

“[Harriet Tubman] was the antithesis of slavery,” Moss told CNN. “I thought that suggestion was a good suggestion.”

According to the Miami Herald, the update will only apply to the parts of the highway that run through Miami-Dade County—Old Dixie Highway in South Dade and West Dixie Highway in Northeast Dade—but commissioners are encouraging the rest of Florida to follow suit.

Even if that happens, there will still be quite a (literal) long way to go before we see “Harriet Tubman Highway” on the entire Dixie Highway: The roadway spans a total of 5786 miles across 10 states, all the way from Florida to Michigan.

That said, the lack of major opposition to the name alteration in Miami-Dade County bodes well for the future of Tubman-christened roads everywhere. Some locals did voice concerns about the cost of changing signs and business addresses, but the commissioners felt the importance of eliminating a term so closely associated with slavery would outweigh those costs.

“The time is always right to do what is right,” Moss told CNN, quoting the sermon Martin Luther King Jr. gave at the National Cathedral just four days before his assassination in 1968.

[h/t CNN]