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Miami-Dade Approves Harriet Tubman Highway To Replace ‘Dixie’ On County Roads

KENNETH LEMOINE
/
Courtesy
A museum in Macon, Georgia, displays a statue of Harriet Tubman, a Civil War hero and famed conductor of the Underground Railroad, a network of safe houses that helped slaves escape to freedom.

Miami-Dade commissioners unanimously approved renaming the county’s “Dixie” highways after Harriet Tubman, replacing a name branded as celebrating a racist legacy with the name of a legendary liberator of Americans subjected to slavery.

The resolution by Commissioner Dennis Moss officially creates Harriet Tubman Highway out of stretches of road currently named Old Dixie Highway in South Dade and West Dixie Highway in Northeast Dade.

The Dixie Highway name remains on U.S. 1 in South Dade, which is part of a federal network of north-south highways but is controlled by Florida. County lawyers have drafted state legislation to replace “Dixie” with “Harriet Tubman” on Florida roads in Miami-Dade, and the Moss resolution instructs the county’s lobbying team in Tallahassee to pursue the change.

Read more at our news partner the Miami Herald.

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