December 11, 2020 at 10:45am
A week after narrowing down the list of possible new names for Lee Highway to ten, a task force has settled on its recommendation.
The state route through Arlington currently named after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee should instead be named after civil rights figures Mildred and Richard Loving, says the Working Group on Renaming Lee Highway.
“Mildred and Richard Loving Avenue” would honor the Virginia couple whose fight for the legalization of interracial marriage in the the 1960s culminated in a Supreme Court case and inspired the 2016 movie
Loving.
Though Caroline County residents, the Lovings also lived in Washington, D.C., where they originally married in 1958 since interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia at the time. They were forced to move to D.C. in 1959 after being arrested and pleading guilty to “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.” Their fight to overturn anti-miscegenation laws was
Arlington may swap Lee Highway name for Mildred and Richard Loving Avenue
Patricia Sullivan, The Washington Post
Dec. 10, 2020
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A tombstone marks a grave at an old African American cemetery that sits adjacent to Calloway United Methodist Church along Lee Highway on Feb. 23, 2012, in Arlington, Va. A county panel wants to change the name of the highway to honor Mildred and Richard Loving, the couple who successfully challenged Virginia s ban on interracial marriage.Washington Post photo by Jahi Chikwendiu
WASHINGTON - In an act of what might be considered historic poetic justice, a panel of suburban Arlington, Va. residents wants to change the name of Lee Highway, which honors Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, to Mildred and Richard Loving Avenue, the couple who successfully challenged Virginia s ban on interracial marriage.