Progressive reform in the South

I've been trying to keep my eyes open for some good news to report, particularly in the flat earth areas. There is one nice example today coming out of Mississippi.

Stretches of Mississippi highways would be renamed for victims of the nation's most infamous civil rights killings under a bill approved Thursday by the state Senate.

A stretch of Mississippi 19 near Philadelphia, believed to be the site of the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, would be renamed for the three civil rights workers ambushed and killed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. The bill would also rename a portion of U.S. 49 East in Leflore and Tallahatchie counties the Emmett Till Memorial Highway, after the black 14-year-old.

I think this is a positive sign. I've visited that state on a number of occasions, and even today you could quickly find a lot of people who would oppose naming a highway after a black person. Getting one of their state houses to move to name a highway after Emmett Till is a much larger sign of progress than a few road signs might appear.