Officials to Move Ahead on Replacing Offensive Gravestones

[LeighAnn]

Source: Sacramento Bee

Officials are vowing to execute plans to replace racist gravestones at the Mormon Island Relocation Cemetery, even though the activist who pushed hardest for their replacement now appears to want to stall it.

"I don't want to wait any longer," El Dorado County Supervisor John Knight said Friday. His district includes the El Dorado Hills cemetery.

The offensive headstones have had a convoluted history ever since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers oversaw their installation in 1954.

The graves were moved from the community of Negro Hill to make way for Folsom Lake. When the graves were moved, new concrete markers bore a racist version of the town's name, using the so-called N-word.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/21/3850990/officials-to-move-ahead-on-replacing.html

[ZombieHorde]

1. Yikes. Here is a picture of one of the gravestones.

http://www.dailynews.com/politics/ci_18004238

[GKirk]

2. I have a 1950's county map...

...of Bay County Michigan that refers to a "N-word Point'. It's been changed to a Native American name now.

[jwirr]

3. A nice Native American name or the one that Native Americans

object to? Especially Native American women?

[GKirk]

4. It's an actual NA word...

...but I don't know what it means. I sure hope it
isn't anything offensive to anyone. I just had the
thought that it could be a Native American slur for
the same word it replaced, that would be awful to find out.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. I think that they should leave the stones just the way they are.

I would prefer that they put a historical sign describing the story here, explaining that the proper name of the relocated town was "Negro Hill". We should all remember how shamefully we have treated blacks in this country, lest we forget one of these days. Yes, I am disgusted that someone was ignorant enough to mark these tombstones in this way. But I would like to see the person responsible identified and have that person's name recorded on a sign at this cemetary for all eternity.

[trud]

6. "We"?

I love how everyone is painted with the same brush, even those of us who weren't there and didn't even have ancestors in this country then.

[captain jack]

8. You're here now, taking advantage of a system (country) based on a racist foundation.

You think that without slave labor and free Indian land you would eventually find yourself here now? I love how everyone likes to remove themselves from past atrocities just because they or their ancestors were not here. The present day is directly related to the past. It doesn't matter when you and yours arrived, you benefit from it today, and your children tomorrow.

[trud]

12. yeah, sure

I really benefited from slave labor and free Indian land when I applied to Caltech and got a letter "Women are not admitted to the undergraduate school and are admitted to the graduate school only in exceptional circumstances."

By the way, I guess you're going to file a lawsuit in my behalf because my ancestors were serfs in Europe. Oh, wait, that doesn't count? Doesn't someone owe me some money for that?

[GKirk]

9. It wasn't actually called Negro Hill...

...that was the cleaned up version.

[Curmudgeoness]

10. Where did you see that? I read the article, but did not see

this referenced. :shrug:

[GKirk]

11. Click on the picture of the tombstone in reply #1 n/t

[snooper2]

13. No, some asshole changed the name when the new markers were made in the 50's

You should read the article before you try to correct others in the future :hi:

[Historic NY]

7. Activist or opportunist........either fix it or leave it.......

I've encounter 18th slave burials in my work. Locally we just had a big mess because a public works "court house" project turned up an old negro cemetery. The local historians knew about the location but were never contacted for sometime. The burials were supposed to have been moved back around the 1900 period. The new evidence shows they & others weren't and subsequent project also occurred around them. They were removed and a planned re-interment is scheduled along with appropriate markers. This became a community effort.

If there is funding to fix them then do so. Its apparent that the individuals are unknowns a good monument person could also grind off the offensive wood and replace it. I'd fix it and indicate it as such. Now is the time to correct the mistake.