It's not entirely certain that the Lee District in Fairfax County was named for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — but the potential for confusion is reason enough for a committee to recommend changing the district's name.
Fairfax County’s Redistricting Advisory Committee is recommending that the Lee and Sully magisterial districts be renamed. "The report recommends that these two names be changed because they no longer reflect the county’s values due to their association with the Confederacy and slavery," according to the committee's report summary.
The Lee District runs west of Richmond Highway from Belle Haven down to Mount Vernon, and includes Huntley Meadow, Groveton, Rose Hill, Kingstowne, Franconia, the northern edge of Newington and a small section of Springfield west of the Beltway.
“Whether the Lee name attributed to Lee District is or is not Robert E. Lee is immaterial if the Board of Supervisors is to change names associated with the Confederacy but leaves in place a name which will cause confusion because of ambiguity,” according to the report.
The Sully District was named for the Sully Historic Site, a farm that used enslaved labor.
The criteria to evaluate district names was, overall, "whether the names represent Fairfax County’s values and celebrate the best qualities of our shared community,” said Paul Berry, committee chair. Demographics, public input and historic records all played a role in the decision-making process.
The next step is for the full Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to decide whether to rename any districts, as well as determine the process for choosing new names. There is no timeline set for doing this yet.
