Resources
Palisades Tahoe was previously named with a slur against Native women. Learn more against this place’s journey to a new name here. (Photo Credit: Richard Gunion)
A guide to changing racist and offensive names on public lands
Across the United States, thousands of features on public lands bear racist and offensive names. From tributes to Confederate leaders and slave owners, to ethnic and misogynistic slurs, these names perpetuate violence and oppression rooted in our natiion’s history of colonization and prejudice.
The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (NATHPO) and The Wilderness Society co-sponsored a guide aiming to make it easier for First Nations, grassroots organizations, local leaders, and the general public to take actions against offensive and derogatory places names.
Naming Matters
Should Devils Tower be called Bear Lodge? Is Tacoma a better moniker than Mount Rainier? Around the country, activists are fighting to change place names they deem offensive, hurtful or arbitrary, and national parks are frequently the areas of these campaigns. Restoring names back to Indigenous identity can be a critical process in self-determination and taking steps toward a narrative that reflects the true spirit of the land and place.
The race to replace derogatory place names
Renaming is an opportunity for frank conversations about reckoning with the legacies of trauma. In this article, Grist and The Wilderness Society discuss the thousands of place names in need of renaming. This is a great introduction into renaming work, outlining important stakeholders, government bodies, and case studies.
New study reveals system-scale problem of National Park place names
While the federal government recently announced plans to replace 660 place-names with the derogatory term “sq**w”, a new study published today in the journal People and Nature shows that derogatory place-names are only the tip of the iceberg. Violence in place-names takes many forms, from valorizing racist colonizers and Confederate leaders, to commemorating atrocities, to erasing Indigenous cultures.
Titled “Words are Monuments”, the study presents findings from a quantitative analysis of National Park place-names conducted by a team of six researchers—five ecologists and one specialist in ethnic studies.
Words are Monuments
A national reckoning with US history and racial injustice has been playing out on the terrain of monuments, museums, school curricula, and increasingly—maps. In a new report, “Words Are Monuments,” scientists analyzed 2,200 National Park place-names, asking how place-names perpetuate settler-colonial myths. While the federal government plans to rename 660 place-names with the derogatory term “sq**w,” the new study reveals the system-scale problem of place-names on public lands.
Place-names encode a way of seeing, understanding, and relating to the land. They inscribe our social values on official maps for the future generations. Like the movement to topple Confederate and colonial statues, renaming campaigns demonstrate how oppressive word-monuments–as symbols of extraction, erasure, and enclosure–can be replaced and reclaimed as life-affirming sites for cultural resurgence and #landback.
Official proposal submitted for Kuwohi name change
Lavita Hill and Mary Crowe, both members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), submitted a proposal to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) on Tuesday, Feb. 6 on behalf of EBCI Principal Chief Michell Hicks and Tribal Council to officially request the name change of Clingman’s Dome, located in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and restore it to the original name Kuwohi.