OLYMPIA — Inspired by South Carolina pulling the Confederate flag from the front of its statehouse last year, an effort by state lawmakers to remove a symbol of slavery passed the House unanimously Monday.
House Joint memorial 4010, which now heads to the Senate for consideration, would name State Route 99 after black Civil War veteran William P. Stewart, of Snohomish. Stewart fought for the Union in an infantry unit comprised of black men, according to the bill.
Markers along what used to be State Route 99 near Blaine and Vancouver, Clark County, once honored Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.
The highway has no official name and the markers, blessed by state officials in 1940, have since been taken down. But Rep. Hans Dunshee, of Snohomish, said it’s still an important gesture to rechristen the highway.
“I think it’s a statement about our values as opposed to what they were in 1941 at the height of the Jim Crow era,” Dunshee said after the vote.
Dunshee first tried to name the highway after Stewart in 2002. He said a previous effort never cleared the Senate, which in 2002 was controlled by Democrats. When South Carolina removed the flag in July following the killings of nine black church members during a Bible study in Charleston, Dunshee said it was time to try again.
The markers now sit in Jefferson Davis Park next to Interstate 5 near Ridgefield, according to the private park’s website. State Route 99 was the major north-south route through Western Washington before I-5 opened in the 1960s. Many parts of State Route 99 were replaced by I-5.
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