Black and Indigenous Activists Unite to Eradicate Racist Landmarks

The waters in and around the United States have had a long history of claiming Black life since the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Along the Kansas and Missouri border, a small, unassuming creek is a part of this lineage, researchers say.

For years, Johnson County, Kansas, residents believed the Big Negro Creek that cut through their home was named for less depraved reasons — maybe for its dark, muddy waters, or in hope, some were sure it was named in honor of it being part of an Underground Railroad route.

But in 2021, after a year-long archival research project, it was discovered that the creek was most likely named after a Black man who died in the waters during an attempt to escape his enslavers.

Across the country, there are still hundreds of landmarks with the phrase negro still included in their name, begging the question of how many more similar stories dot those landmarks.

“It’s shocking that we still have things named after those atrocities,” said Patrick Wotruba, an activist working to rename the creek. To this day, the area bears the remnants of slavery; racism is “escalated here,” he said, as efforts to address racial inequality in the area have been continuously culled since 2020.

A growing coalition of Black and Indigenous activists are revitalizing the push to rename racist landmarks in the hopes of connecting the long-shared experiences of Indigenous and formerly enslaved African people.

Yet, at the same time, the movement has highlighted generational differences among Black social justice groups.

The impacts of something as seemingly subtle as landmark names are long-lasting. Studies have shown that being surrounded by racist iconography has direct effects on the physical and mental health of both adults and children.

It’s why, in recent months, a movement to rename such sites has united Black and Indigenous activism to combat this lingering form of racism.

“With all that is taking place in the world at this time, it is of the utmost importance to return to this ancestral practice to find grounding and resolution,” said Nadia Brewer, an Afro-Indigenous activist who works with the Native American nonprofit Lakota People’s Law Project, about the need for solidarity to find common ground.

When former U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland stepped into the role of secretary of the interior as the first ever Indigenous person to hold a Cabinet secretary position, she brought with her the most concerted effort to eliminate racist names from landmarks across the country. Over the past three years, roughly 650 derogatory names have been removed from public lands, with an emphasis on replacing names connected with the long-standing violence against Native Americans.

But as Haaland’s initial task force focused on the 650 sites comes to a close, national attention to the movement is waning. Yet, Black Lives Matter Greater NY has joined the Lakota People’s Law Project in pushing for the U.S. Department of the Interior to emphasize renaming anti-Black landmarks.

“In a nation plagued by poverty, injustice, and hopelessness, changing racist location names is a simple fix,” said Chivona Newsome, co-founder of the BLM chapter.

Read More: Activist Recounts the Forgotten History of Black-Native Solidarity

The work has illuminated questions among Black activists around ranking priorities related to racist rhetoric versus structural racism, and how impactful solidarity and connection-building are for Black Americans.

For some Black activists, there is the belief that attention should instead be focused wholly on defeating structural racism. In contrast, others argue that the names of these landmarks are direct products of structural racism.

In Johnson County, the debate around renaming the creek led to such a contentious junction that the local chapter of the NAACP split into two.

“The division, it’s nothing shocking,” said Wotruba, who organizes with the social justice organization The Miller Dream. “We saw it during the [2020 Black Lives Matter] protests. It’s like the debate around defunding or reforming the police. Some people are OK with the status quo, others are radical, and some just don’t like the approaches offered.”

But for Jay Holbert, president of the Johnson County NAACP, maintaining the creek’s name is the first step in addressing its history.

“The state that we are in now, we have people trying to erase our history — not only ours but Indigenous people’s. They’re trying to wipe out history and make another race look predominantly happy, like they didn’t do any wrong. That’s not right,” said Holbert in 2023.

“History should be history. You can’t learn if you don’t know the truth,” he added.

Following the county’s NAACP chapter supporting maintaining the creek’s name, local government efforts to rename the creek have effectively died. However, it remains on the top of the list for the coalition of Black and Indigenous activists. Other sites of focus include Darky Knob in Kentucky and Pickaninny Buttes in California.

In San Bernardino County, California, which has a long history of racism and police brutality, Pickaninny Buttes was likely named because Black Americans attempted to build a settlement there in the early 20th century. While the charge to rename the site has existed for at least a decade, it has not picked up steam in the county, which is just 7% Black.

About 350 miles northeast of Johnson County, a community in central Illinois recently renamed a body of water once known as Big Negro Creek. It was named after the area’s first Black settler, who built a cabin in 1829 at the creek mouth on the Illinois River in DePue, but after years of protest, supported by the area’s NAACP, it has now been renamed Adams Creek, the last name of the man. His first name is unknown.

Black residents around the Illinois creek have publicly rejoiced at the name change, invoking memories of when older residents would openly refer to the creek as ‘N-word’ Creek and when children would use the same creek-related slur on the schoolyard.

Examples like this explain the ongoing effort to get these landmarks renamed. “The power of naming creates realities, creates dynamics between the oppressed and the oppressor, the colonizer and the colonized,” said Lakota People’s Law Project Director Chase Iron Eyes. “How can we, in good conscience, let these names exist in 2024?”

If you want to honor the history behind certain locations, Iron Eyes said, “Get specific and name it after the actual person or family. A place name that’s specific and intentional does more to honor history and encourages an attitude of respect. Being mindful of this makes a difference in how the next generation thinks and navigates the world.”

If you live near a site with a racist or offensive name, you can take action here.

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