California Parks Renaming

Where: Humboldt and Del Norte Counties
When: 2020-21

In 2020, the California Department of Parks and Recreation announced a plan to identify and act on discriminatory and dehumanizing names currently used in its parks. 

Del Norte and Humboldt Counties include many places that are historically sacred to local tribes. These places are often in locations where traumatic events took place, including genocide.

Patrick’s Point State Park

Yet many of these places are now state parks with names that honor the perpetrators of violence, or that disparage and dehumanize Tribal and Indian communities and minimize the brutal history that transpired here. In order to move on together from this cruel shared past, healing must first take place, beginning with acknowledgement and recognition of our shared history and responsibility. An important part of this healing process is to consider the appropriateness of names assigned to some of the most sacred places, and to consider the original names applied by Native stewards of this land for centuries.

 In preparation for this important work, True North Organizing Network convened meetings with a local group of leaders and tribal representatives to discuss the possible renaming of local parks and lands. They worked to create a plan of action for ensuring that local tribes and supporters have a chance to participate in this historic process.

On May 19th, we had a Virtual Village Community Meeting, where we discussed how we want this statewide initiative to play out locally. We honored special guest Axel Lindgren III for his service to the community and to the Tsurai Ancestral Society. 

The Tsurai village of Sumeeg was the largest southernmost village of the Yurok tribe, covering over 65,000 acres, including Humboldt County’s Trinidad Head, Little Head, and Luffenholz Beach. The tireless work of the Tsurai people to protect, maintain and preserve their sacred sites, despite not being a federally recognized tribe, represents perfectly the spirit of the work we aim to do locally with the parks renaming initiative. We honored Axel Lindgren III for his important work in this field, which epitomizes the immense power that exists in the renaming and reclaiming of ancestral lands to bring about community healing.

Skip Lowry read a moving poem that he wrote, excerpted here:

“Balanced, beautiful, easy to oar

I hear the pain of my people’s past

But it never drowns out the Forever Dance

I know someday I will go home.”

After the poem, we broke into small groups to discuss local sites of importance that should be considered for renaming, as well as general feelings about how we envision this initiative taking shape in our region, and what our priorities should be. Important places to consider for renaming that were brought up by various participants were Patrick’s Point, Peacock Bar, Jedediah Smith State Park, and Fort Humboldt. Themes that emerged in the discussion were a widely felt excitement about the potential for this Initiative to set a larger community-wide healing process in motion, the need to work on various levels and scales (local, citywide, and countywide), and the need to find a balance between the protection and preservation of sacred sites and their educational potential for the community. 

True North was also pleased to have tribal members from across the state join us at the meeting to bring attention to their efforts to address the particularly offensive and derogatory names that are currently place-markers across the state, including Chairpeople from the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians. Finally, we closed the gathering with a call to action, asking those who attended to support us in our efforts to bring this exciting opportunity to our region and commence the community healing process. 

True North is grateful for the cooperation and support we have received from the local Superintendent of Parks on this important and compelling issue. We look forward to meeting with him soon, and eventually going before the full State Commission in late summer or early fall.

If you’d like to stay up to date on this issue, please fill out this survey and we’ll be sure to update you on its progress and upcoming events you can participate in.