Donald Trump Changes “Obama Highway” Back to to “Old Dixie Highway”-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Donald Trump has changed “President Obama Highway” back to its original name, “Old Dixie Highway.”
The Truth:
Misleading or “clickbait” headlines are behind false reports that Donald Trump changed “Obama Highway” back to “Old Dixie Highway” that surfaced in January 2018.
Identical versions of the report appeared at various websites, making it hard to determine where it originated. These stories appeared under headlines like this: “Trump Orders to Remove Obama Highway Name and Put This New Highway Name? Do You Support Him?”
After clicking on the headline, however, it becomes apparent that the story is a commentary about how President Trump should change the name of Obama Highway — not a news report that Trump actually did it. One excerpt reads:
Over the last few months, we have heard how liberals have tried to desecrate the history of our ancestors by trying to remove Confederate monuments from our cities. Now they are going a step further and they are trying to remove the name “Dixie” from our history.
Aside from the misleading headline, the article also falsely reports liberals had just launched the effort. Local officials in Riviera Beach, Florida, made the decision to rename the road in 2015. The effort was launched in August 2015, and President Barack Obama Highway signs went up in December 2015, the Palm Beach Post reports:
The city of Riviera Beach has begun replacing Old Dixie Highway signs with ones honoring the nation’s first black president.
Many black Americans have little love for the term “Dixie,” a reference to the slave-holding South. Obama, on the other hand, is revered by most black Americans.
Officials in Riviera Beach don’t have any plans to change Obama Highway back to Old Dixie Highway. And, given that it’s not a federal highway, it’s not clear how Trump could change the name — even if he wanted to. For those reasons, we’re calling this one “fiction.”
