Springfield, Missouri officials lost legal battle but won a moral victory over neo-Nazis who “adopted a highway” in a clean-up campaign after arguments of “freedom of speech” trumped government attempts to stop the group. The Missouri Department of Transportation decided to reward the neo-Nazi cleanup campaign by naming the highway after Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who fled Nazi Germany and was a prominent civil rights supporter in the United States.
The organization’s members often wear swastikas, and its clean-up campaign prompted the Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee in Kansas City to suggest naming the highway in memory of Rabbi Heschel.
A similar battle with the neo-Nazis several years ago ended up with the adopted highway being named after a black civil rights advocate.
Cynthia Keene, an official of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, mocked the proposed legislation to re-name the highway as “childish. She explained, "If they want to have Nazis out there stomping on a Jewish-named highway, that's their choice.''
However, the rabbi's daughter Susannah Heschel, a Jewish history professor objected to the legislation to rename the 800-meter stretch of the road cleaned up by the neo-Nazis. "I don't want Nazis stomping on a highway named for my father. What are they going to do then if they don't pick up the litter? The whole thing is disgusting," she said.
I don't want Nazis stomping on a highway named for my father. What are they going to do then if they don't pick up the litter?
"It may be an attempt to teach the neo-Nazis a lesson, she said. But I think it's an affront to my father's dignity to attach his name to a neo-Nazi highway. I understand the good intentions," Susannah Heschel said. "Everybody wants to get rid of racism.... But I don't think it should be done this way."
The website of the National Socialist movement responded, "We welcome this spineless legislation, as it will no doubt spur a backlash from the local people whom will wonder why anyone, especially outside Jewish agitators would attempt to disrespect local citizens that volunteer their time to clean local roads.”