The former Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, the first Native American in a presidential cabinet, had appointed an Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names. The Committee’s task was to remove racist slurs from geographical place names like Mount Evans Wilderness (named for a man who was responsible for the massacre of more than 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people). That name was changed to ”Mount Blue Sky Wilderness,” chosen by the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
More than 650 place names that had a slur against indigenous women were changed. Tribal representatives picked out the new names. One of the most famous changes was dumping Mt. McKinley, named by a gold prospector for a president with no connection to Alaska, to Mt. Denali, a name that means “great one,” used for over 10,000 years.
Now this Advisory Committee is being disbanded. We’ve had an executive order to change Mt. Denali back to Mt. McKinley. The depth of this current administration’s pettiness is truly amazing. Rest assured, however, that long after Trump is dead, Mt. Denali will still be there, and it will still be Mt. Denali, no matter what the clown in the White House or his Interior Secretary Doug Burgum say it is.
Info for this post was taken in part from an email from the Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund. <info@nativeorganizing.org>.
I didn't know they renamed Squaw Valley to Olympic Valley 'til this morning. Thank you! The Grand Teton's remains the same. I guess we should be thankful we don't live in the Thump America!
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