Many people don't realize as late the 1950s, there was a Nigger Hill outside of Prattsville, NY - as seen on this 1945 Prattsville Topographic Map. Department of Interior Secretary, Stewart Udall started a campaign in 1962 to rename all places named Nigger Hill to Negro Hill, the change took place in 1963. However, New York State must have petitioned to change the name somewhat earlier, as this 1960 reprint of the 1945 Prattsville Topographic map already has the change.
There are five Negro Hills across New York, three of them (those in Clinton, Wayne, Delaware) appear on old federal topographic maps as Nigger or Niger Hill according to GNIS.
President Obama urged GNIS to change the naming Negro-named place to less offensive names. However, renaming a landmark involves a lengthy local process, including historical research to justify the change. It was relatively easy to swap out Nigger Hill for Negro Hill, but if you are going to have unique local names, then they would have justify each new name.
The English word squaw is an ethnic and sexual slur, historically used for Indigenous North American women. Nearly 800 places in America include such a term in it's naming. This interactive map shows those locations, coloring represents a different category of point such as lake, stream, summit.
New York State was one of the last states in the northeast to eliminate slavery. You can see slave counts from the 1790 Census, and the density of slavery in the state during that year. Learn more about the history of slavery in New York State: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_New_York_(state)
The other day when I went to Walmart to pick up some supplies,🏪 I saw the clerk was a younger man, Caucasian with red hair. Somehow I had to react differently, viscerally to see a white clerk there – one who looked more like someone would work on a farm or on your car or repairing mechanical equipment.👨 I bet he owns a lot of guns, a four wheeler, likes bonfires and drinking beer. Probably lives out in country, maybe this is his second job to make ends meet and provide for his family. Certainly, cool guy to hang out with, a bro.
After I got back to my jacked up pickup truck, turned on engine, took a sigh, and realized how truly racist my attitudes were in the store.😐 Just because somebody is white or has red hair, doesn’t mean they’re any more of a decent person then an African American or Latino clerk. Certainly not all blacks are drug dealers who on the side work at Walmart to pretend to have a legitimate job. That’s just a terrible stereotype, often portrayed in the media. Many are not immigrants, many are not struggling to make ends meet.👬 Granted Walmart is famous for underpaying workers, but not every one there is a drug dealer or welfare queen.
Prejudice is a something I’ve struggled with for most of my adult life. 🚧I always have found it disconcerting to see an African American driving a pickup truck.🚛 Some how it violates my idea of the stereotype. It really kind of bothers me a lot, because I don’t think of myself as a racist or a bad person.😥 I don’t dislike people because of their race and would never intentionally treat a person differently based on their race. 🌐I think I should work to be more open minded and less prejudicial, but it’s hard to over-turn long-standing prejudices against the groups that different then myself.🗽
The simplest narrative of American history portrays the North as a humanitarian anti-slavery hero in the fight for freedom and equality for African Americans. But a closer look at history will reveal something much darker.
The same beliefs of Black inferiority were expressed by political and business leaders, and the citizens who put them in charge, in both Northern and Southern states in ways that were both implicit and explicit. New York state is one of the many Northern states that has a history with slavery and anti-Blackness that’s built into the fabric of its institutions – it is just much more hidden compared to the states that made up the Confederacy.
