Racist Place Names

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/us...er=rss&emc=rss

Race-Based Names Dot the Landscape
By KIM SEVERSON
ATLANTA — The onetime name of Gov. Rick Perry’s Texas hunting camp is currently the most famous example of an egregious race-based place name, but it is not the only one.

Consider Runaway Negro Creek, which runs near a state park outside Savannah, Ga. The name is printed on nautical charts, but park rangers find it so uncomfortable to use, they try to avoid saying it out loud.

It is just one of several hundred places that have the word “Negro” in their names and still exist on government maps and in the local vernacular in dozens of states.

They are vestiges of racial attitudes that not that long ago made it acceptable to label a piece of property once leased by Gov. Rick Perry’s family as Niggerhead, an offensive name that had been painted in block letters on a large rock at the entrance to the rural northern Texas hunting camp. The word was once so common it was used as a brand name for everyday items like soap, canned shrimp and tobacco.

Although it would be hard to find anyone willing to argue that the term or its variants should still be on any maps or signs, many people now also say that Negro — a government-approved alternative to the harsher epithet that is still affixed to mountains, rivers and other places — should also be removed.

Debates over potentially offensive place names have long been a part of the civic debate in the United States, and some groups persuaded the government to change race-based names that were considered insulting. But it is not always a simple or a welcome process.

The United States Board on Geographic Names, the federal agency that maintains the official names of more than 2.5 million streams, mountains, cities and civic buildings, lists 757 names that use the word Negro or a variation, said Lou Yost, executive secretary of the board.

Some are based on the Spanish word for black and are not necessarily race-based, but many were derived from the same slur that caused trouble for Mr. Perry.

In 1963, the federal government ordered that the offensive term be replaced with “Negro” in all geographic names. At the time, that word was an acceptable reference to African-Americans. (The only other similar blanket order came a few years later, when the word “Jap” on place names was changed to “Japanese.”)

But language, like culture, changes. Now place names like Negro Mountain in western Maryland seem, to many, antiquated at best and offensive at worst.

But officially or unofficially, erasing race-based references is difficult.

Just ask Patricia Colman, a history professor at Moorpark College in Ventura County, Calif., who in 2004 thought that a small peak near Malibu, Calif., that for years had been known as Negrohead Mountain should be changed to Ballard Mountain, after the black homesteader who settled there.

After an effort that wound through the National Park Service, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, a state naming board and, finally, the federal naming board, it was changed in 2009.

She does not quibble with the high bar the federal government sets for changing place names, and she understands that many names were given to honor African-Americans.

“A lot of people feel the names should not be changed because they reflect a historical reality,” she said. “I would argue that there are better ways to teach that history.”

Maps show that Negro Creek Road runs through part of Maury County near Columbia, Tenn. Bob Duncan, the county historian, said the creek was given the name after three young black boys drowned at its mouth in the early 1800s. The road was named after the creek, and everybody still calls it that. It is to honor and remember the children, he said.

“Every three to five years somebody will rise up and say, ‘Oh, my! Why do you call it that?’ ” he said. “We tell them and they say, ‘Oh, O.K.’ ”

Securing an official federal name change is a challenge. The petitioner must convince first a state board and then the federal government that a new name is better, based on factors that include historical significance and local acceptance.

“It’s not something we do lightly,” Mr. Yost said.

The board receives about 325 requests to add a new name or change one every year, and grants most of them. Requests to change a name that includes the word Negro are rare, but “they have been a little more frequent lately,” he said.

Still, even on the local level, changing a name is difficult. Part of the reason is the nature of cultural sensitivities. One person’s offensive name may be another’s point of pride, as communities are learning as they grapple with requests to change sites that use the term “Squaw.”

Then there is custom. Local residents, including some African-Americans, sometimes see no reason to change a name that has always been there. Others argue that changing race-based names is political correctness run amok.

There are practical reasons to keep the old names. With millions to track and countless versions of official maps on file both on paper and digitally, order must maintained. It is a Sisyphean task that falls to the keepers of the national database of place names, the Geographic Names Information System.

As a result, the federal database does not always reflect the names on maps from other government agencies, or even local usage. For example, the database shows that Negro Mountain is in Marshall County, Ala. But Johnny Hart, the director of the county’s 911 center, has lived in the area for 63 years and has never heard of the place.

States and local governments can also change names, with new ones eventually making their way to the federal database. But raising interest in the issue is difficult, said Steven A. Geller, a former Florida state senator who fought for years to pass a law requiring state agencies and local governments to identify offensive names and find suitable replacements.

“There were several opponents,” he said. “One was the faction who said, ‘Who cares? It’s not that important an issue.’ The other was from local governments who said, ‘We aren’t racists; that’s just what it’s always been called.’ ”

Still, as Mr. Perry is finding, what something is called can matter a great deal.

“Like many of these questions, it’s case by case, but I certainly think there are some words that can’t be painted over or blacked out,” said Kevin Young, a professor of English and creative writing at Emory University in Atlanta whose coming book, “The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness,” explores issues of race and language.

Words, he said, matter, whether in conversation or in the name of a creek.

“Most people feel like the N-word, when used in a certain context, and even Negro, is being called out of your name,” he said. “And no one likes that.”

Robbie Brown contributed reporting.