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Geographical names with “Jim Crow” are history in this state

All of the “Jim Crow” names on Washington state’s map could be erased before the end of this year.

On May 19, the state’s Committee on Geographic Names in Olympia approved formal consideration of renaming three Jim Crow features in Wahkiakum County, located in southwest Washington. The board will meet again in October, when they could make the changes after getting input from the public, tribes and historians.

Jospeh Budnick, a resident of Cathlamet — a town bordering the Columbia River – has put forward three new names for the board to consider to replace Jim Crow Point, Jim Crow Creek and Jim Crow Hill near the Columbia River. Instead of Jim Crow Point, Budnick proposes Brookfield Point, a name he says is already used locally and which refers to a 19th century town once located there. He also suggests Harlows Creek after John and Mary Harlow, who had a houseboat on the creek in the 1870s, and Beare Hill to honor early 1900s settlers Georgiana and John Beare.

Read entire article at Crosscut