Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Change rules, not McKinney road
ajc.com > Opinion
Steve Tate was a bully who bragged about cheating people and refused to pay taxes, according to North Georgia historian Charlene Terrell.
"Even though he died in 1958, there are some people up here who still fear his name," says Terrell, author of "Wolfscratch Wilderness," a chronicle of the old Blue Ridge Mountain settlement that's now Big Canoe.
And what did Tate get for his misdeeds? A highway named after him in Pickens and Dawson counties.
If the Legislature wants to start stripping names from roads because of the errant ways of the honoree, it has to go well beyond U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney. The state is crisscrossed with roads christened in commemoration of dubious characters.
More than 450 state roads and bridges carry the names of politicians, entertainers, athletes, politicians and private citizens, not all of whom are paragons of virtue. Yet state Rep. Len Walker (R-Loganville) wants to erase only McKinney's name, claiming she "has brought embarrassment to the state of Georgia."
If embarrassment is the criterion, Walker better buy his erasers by the crate. The Republican lawmaker can start rubbing the I-75 Chattahoochee River Bridge, named for former Gov. Lester Maddox, who became a national symbol of segregation for chasing away blacks trying to integrate his Pickrick restaurant.
Then there's James Brown Boulevard in Augusta, so dubbed for the Godfather of Soul despite his long record of domestic violence and drug arrests.
Certainly, McKinney has aggravated many Georgians with her antics. Voters in her DeKalb congressional district kicked her out of office in her party's July primary. Walker's grandstanding is an effort by Republicans to get one last drop of publicity from McKinney before she slips into well-deserved oblivion.
A better approach is to adopt a ban on naming roads, bridges and intersections after living people. All honorary designations ought to wait until the party is long dead and enough history has passed to expose all skeletons.
Terrell, for instance, says she would not be upset if the state took Steve Tate's name off the highway, given what her research has revealed. "But I am not going to lead a petition to do it," she says. "Changing road names causes confusion."
— Maureen Downey, for the editorial board (mdowney@ajc.com)
Steve Tate was a bully who bragged about cheating people and refused to pay taxes, according to North Georgia historian Charlene Terrell.
"Even though he died in 1958, there are some people up here who still fear his name," says Terrell, author of "Wolfscratch Wilderness," a chronicle of the old Blue Ridge Mountain settlement that's now Big Canoe.
And what did Tate get for his misdeeds? A highway named after him in Pickens and Dawson counties.
If the Legislature wants to start stripping names from roads because of the errant ways of the honoree, it has to go well beyond U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney. The state is crisscrossed with roads christened in commemoration of dubious characters.
More than 450 state roads and bridges carry the names of politicians, entertainers, athletes, politicians and private citizens, not all of whom are paragons of virtue. Yet state Rep. Len Walker (R-Loganville) wants to erase only McKinney's name, claiming she "has brought embarrassment to the state of Georgia."
If embarrassment is the criterion, Walker better buy his erasers by the crate. The Republican lawmaker can start rubbing the I-75 Chattahoochee River Bridge, named for former Gov. Lester Maddox, who became a national symbol of segregation for chasing away blacks trying to integrate his Pickrick restaurant.
Then there's James Brown Boulevard in Augusta, so dubbed for the Godfather of Soul despite his long record of domestic violence and drug arrests.
Certainly, McKinney has aggravated many Georgians with her antics. Voters in her DeKalb congressional district kicked her out of office in her party's July primary. Walker's grandstanding is an effort by Republicans to get one last drop of publicity from McKinney before she slips into well-deserved oblivion.
A better approach is to adopt a ban on naming roads, bridges and intersections after living people. All honorary designations ought to wait until the party is long dead and enough history has passed to expose all skeletons.
Terrell, for instance, says she would not be upset if the state took Steve Tate's name off the highway, given what her research has revealed. "But I am not going to lead a petition to do it," she says. "Changing road names causes confusion."
— Maureen Downey, for the editorial board (mdowney@ajc.com)
