海角大神

For decades, Runaway Negro Creek was nothing more than a local high-tide cut-through to avoid the 鈥渘o wake鈥� zone along the yacht docks at .

In antebellum times, however, the oyster-specked backwater was, according to island lore, an escape route for African slaves from the nearby Modena rice plantation. Others say it may have been named for escaped chain gang convicts in the Jim Crow era.

Either way, it seems a total no-brainer to turn what Savannah, Ga., resident Mack Richards, a white 20-something, calls 鈥渁 tasteless name鈥� on its head and instead call it 鈥淔reedom Creek,鈥� as the Republican-led Georgia legislature voted wholeheartedly to do last March. Nixing the name Runaway Negro Creek 鈥渋s just common sense, which of course isn鈥檛 always common,鈥� says Mr. Richards鈥檚 friend, Jason Burns, who is black and also in his 20s.

鈥淚ntentional or not,鈥� Senate Resolution 685 reads, 鈥渢he current name of such creek serves to cast, edify and perpetuate a posture of criminality upon the men and women who pursued the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.鈥�

Yet nearly a year later, Runaway Negro Creek remains on federal maps.

The bid shows how what seems like a simple process can become mired in red tape, politics, and the tangle of myth versus fact. Names like 鈥淣egro鈥� and 鈥渟quaw鈥� on bogs and peaks reveals a nation struggling to reconcile the nomenclature of the past with the sensibilities of a polyglot future.

鈥淢ost of us don鈥檛 know American history; we know American mythology, and we pass that mythology on and people take it and run with it,鈥� says Amir听Jamal Tour茅, a history professor at Savannah State University. 鈥淏ut when folks say we鈥檙e revising history, we are not; we are correcting history. And in doing so we abolish the mythology.鈥�

鈥楾imes have changed鈥櫶�

Certainly, a broader effort to cleanse America鈥檚 geographical lexicon has erased hundreds of pejorative waypoints, including Negroedge Canyon and Squaw Humper Dam.

Georgia鈥檚 landscape once was pocked with N-word references. Today, while the N-word has disappeared from names, Georgia still has eight place names with Negro in them, including Negro Head Branch, according to the federal .

There are 215 other uses currently on maps across the US, according to some estimates, down from more than 750 in 2011. Most of the stragglers are in the Mountain West, its remoteness and relatively white demographics leaving fewer eyebrows to be raised.

Currently, the United States Geological Survey鈥檚 Board on Geographic Names 鈥� made up of representatives from all 50 states 鈥� meets quarterly to make final decisions on changing geographical place names on official federal maps, leaning heavily on local stakeholder groups for guidance.

The struggle here in Georgia鈥檚 marshes involves determining what really happened, why it happened, and how to sanitize the stains of white supremacy without erasing what many say are the hard elbows of history.

鈥淭his has been happening all across the US,鈥� says Steven Engerrand, Georgia鈥檚 just-retired deputy state archivist. 鈥淧eople used to name all sorts of things that looked like this or looked like that, and the names [remain] on the land regardless of the fact that times have changed.鈥�

Renaming gets political

Places nearest to the heavens, it turns out, may be the toughest to rename.

In 2015, President Barack Obama changed Alaska鈥檚 Mount McKinley, the highest point in North American, to Denali, finalizing a century-long campaign to officially change it back to its ancestral name. Calling the decision a great insult to Ohio 鈥撎齮he birthplace of William McKinley and a key swing sate 鈥� President Trump vowed to change it back. He has so far not delivered on that vow. In a 2017 meeting, Alaska鈥檚 two Republican senators urged the president not to re-re-rename it, arguing that native Athabascans have referred to the 20,310-foot peak as Denali for 10 millennia.

In 2016, South Dakota鈥檚 own Board of Geographic Names successfully lobbied to rename the tallest peak in the state Black Elk Peak, relegating Harney Peak to the history books. Black Elk was a well-known Lakota medicine man; Gen. William Harney鈥檚 troops killed Brul茅 Sioux women and children during the Battle of Blue Water Creek in Nebraska. The change was so controversial that angry lawmakers nearly disbanded the board.

But even patently offensive names can be surprisingly difficult to dislodge.

Pennsylvania and Maryland remain locked in a nomenclature battle with Allegheny area residents over Negro Mountain, a shoulder of quartzite that straddles state lines.

Negro Mountain is named for a hero. But legislation to rename it Mount Nemesis听for an African-American scout who reportedly died while bravely defending a party of settlers against a Native American attack has failed again and again since 2013 鈥� a victim of 鈥渙ur current politics,鈥� argues one legislative aide.

鈥淚 could talk about [renaming places] for over a day, easily, without even blinking, and I would barely scratch the surface of how complicated it is, which is funny, because at first look it seems a no-brainer,鈥� says Karen Blanar, leadership executive director for Pennsylvania state Rep. Rosita Youngblood.

Here on the Isle of Hope 鈥撎齩ne of the wealthiest corners of Georgia 鈥撎齦ifelong resident James Sickel is waging a campaign that is likely to snag the process even more. His research suggests that no escapee ever splashed down the creek. Instead, the name was likely a mean-spirited suggestion by white local officials for a 1906 dredging map.

The retired Murray State University biology professor and amateur historian has looked down on the mouth of the creek his entire life, embarrassed by the name. Dr. Sickel has suggested a 鈥渘onpolitical鈥� replacement: Burnt Pot Creek, for nearby Burnt Pot Island.

鈥淭he Freedom Creek name, to me, is based on a narrative without evidence that any slaves actually escaped through that creek to freedom,鈥� says Sickel. 鈥淪o in my mind, that name perpetuates a narrative that鈥檚 not true or may not be true.鈥�

And therein is the conflict the Board on Geographic Names will have to contend with when it reconvenes in March: Will the broader public鈥檚 desire to make a statement win over local desires?

Dr. Tour茅, of Savannah State, is confident that Freedom Creek will ultimately prevail. The new name, he says, conveys an idea larger than the little creek itself: that 鈥淎fricans sit at the table of humanity as equals, not beggars.鈥�