Loudoun County Board Votes To Eliminate Confederate, Segregationist Road Names

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA — The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors is moving forward with plans to change and prohibit the current and future naming of county roads after Confederate or segregationist figures or symbols or slogans.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously last week to make the changes followed a yearlong effort to identify and catalog Loudoun roads, buildings, signs and other public infrastructure that memorialize Confederate and segregationist figures, symbols or slogans.

“Having a name on a road school or structure is an honor that should be reserved for a very select few,” Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis J. Randall said in a statement Wednesday. “People who supported the enslavement of others, who raped, beat, and sold human beings have not earned the right to have their names enshrined in perpetuity on a road or structure.”

Last week's vote by the Board of Supervisors is in addition to the current initiative to rename Route 7 and Route 50 in Loudoun County, which is being conducted as a separate process.

Loudoun County will now begin the process of renaming Jeb Stuart Road and Fort Johnston Road. Jeb Stuart Road, in the Philomont area, has referenced Confederate General James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart since 1962. Fort Johnston Road, just west of Leesburg, references a Civil War-era fort named for Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston.

The board also started a process for revising the county’s General Naming Standards ordinance to include a section that prohibits using Confederate and segregationist names for future county roads and to pursue the renaming of existing or reserved street names that are in violation of these new criteria.

The county plans to work with the town of Round Hill to rename streets identified in the inventory that are located in the Hillwood Estates subdivision, since these roads fall outside of Loudoun County’s jurisdiction.

In September 2020, the county launched an effort to identify objects and sites that memorialized Confederate leaders, the Confederate cause, or individuals or movements that promoted and implemented racial segregation laws in Virginia during the eras of Jim Crow and Massive Resistance to desegregation. This effort involved the public as well as local historians and community groups.

A multi-departmental team, including staff from the Departments of Planning and Zoning and Transportation and Capital Infrastructure and the Office of Mapping and Geographic Information, provided the completed inventory to the Board in July.

More information is available on the county’s inventory of Confederate and segregationist symbols webpage.

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