Bob Sutton
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

You picked the low-hanging fruit to make a point about opposing narratives, but you do a severe disservice to your case in your selection of search terms. Deeper consideration would reveal that the South has been converting woodlands and rural farms to suburban communities at a dramatic rate since the principal events of the civil rights era. Wherever this has taken place, the first marker of a victorious narrative is the introduction of pavement, generally replacing dirt roads and fire trails. Throughout the South, pavement is thought to elevate a place, to signal its peoples’ aspirations to communicate with the larger world. It is also an article of faith that no paved road shall go nameless — whereas there are many dirt roads that, if called anything, are known only to those who use them regularly. Very often, a newly-paved street will be given the name of the oldest-known or remembered resident, however humble his footprints on the land. Hence, we get a lot of “Joe Brown Place” and “Myra Washington Street” or “Leroy Scott Lane” and the like. (Note that Joe Brown would be a false positive on your search result for Confederates.) These honors recognize the families of, mostly, descendants of slaves. A careful examination of street-naming trends across the region, perhaps using date of construction or population density, should show the mighty rising tide of pride in our historic populations and the much smaller prospects for further Confederate valorization. I think any conclusion regarding which narrative has won out would be inescapable, and not a matter of fine parsing as your results suggest.