If You Think the Civil War Ever Ended, Think Again Stay up to
date with the latest headlines via email. When I first moved to
Washington, D.C., I had hardly a stick of furniture, so I
boarded a bus to take me to the nearest Ikea, which was in a
Virginia mall. Quite unfamiliar with the territory, I watched
out the window with curiosity as the bus traveled along the
chain-store lined route. Soon I noticed we were traveling along
a road called the Jefferson Davis Highway. I was stunned, and a
bit sick to my stomach. How could it be that a highway was named
after a man who made war against the United States, all so the
citizens of his region could continue to hold human beings in
chains? All so slave masters could continue to rape the women
they claimed to own. The children of these unions were usually
enslaved by their own fathers, often acting as servants to their
white half-brothers and -sisters. That throughout a significant
swath of the nation, men who committed treason for the sake of
maintaining chattel sl