(AP) — Efforts to change the roughly 200-year-old racist name of a creek in northern Illinois are gaining traction.
The (Peoria) Journal Star reports that Negro Creek was named after the DePue area's first Black settler built a cabin at the creek in 1829.
Amy Urbanowski, a former area resident, has received support from the Bureau County Board and a local NAACP branch to change the name.
She's sent the information and other details to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which approves such changes. Her idea is to rename the creek Adams, the surname of the Black settler.
"Changing the name of the creek is important," Urbanowski told the Journal Star, "because it's good to reflect on how the names of towns and villages are all historically and respectively named after people, not their race."
Over the years, Urbanowski has even heard people also refer to the creek by a racial slur.
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