GOP backs off fighting name changes
Party retracts official’s testimony that replacing offensive term used for geographic sites could lead to a ‘slippery slope’
Hours after an official with the Texas Republican Party testified that the GOP opposes a bill in the Legislature that would remove offensive names from geographic locations such as Negrohead Lake in Baytown, state party leaders said that testimony was not correct and the official had made a mistake.
Early Monday, David Wylie, a member of the state Republican Party Executive Committee, said that the party was against Senate Concurrent Resolution 29 that would rename more than 30 geographic locations in Texas with the word “negro” in them. Besides Negrohead Lake, other sites in Texas with offensive names include Negro Branch in Travis County, Negrohead Hill in Burnet County and Negro Creek in Stephens County.
“We need our monuments and markers to remain as they are,” said Wylie, who is from Denton County. And though his testimony was later retracted, it shows how far some members of the party’s leadership are willing to go as they push back against efforts to rid the nation of public monuments and names glorifying the Confederacy.
That surprised state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican from Mineola who chairs the Senate State Affairs Committee. Hughes stressed to Wylie that the legislation would not make changes to monuments or historical markers.
“This only applies to geographic places that had the N-word in their title,” Hughes said. “It was a slang term that was changed to a little bit less offensive term.”
But Wylie stood firm, saying those communities where the offensive names are on lakes, hills or other features have not done anything to change those names for some reason.
“If those communities have not stood up to get these namechanges applied, then obviously in my opinion these are important to them,” Wylie said.
As the Houston Chronicle reported in February, a bill that was written into law in 1991 required the lake and 18 other locations around the state to be renamed. Yet 30 years later just one of the sites has a new name.
In 1999, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names rejected Texas’ proposal to rename Negrohead Lake as Lake Henry Doyle, after the first Black law student at a state-owned school in Texas, because it “did not observe any evidence that there was any local involvement in the renaming process.”
Wylie added that if the names of places with the word “negro” are changed, it could lead to other name changes.
“This is perhaps just the first level and it’s a slippery slope,” he said. “Once we do with this, then there are many others.”
But after being contacted by Hearst Newspapers for clarification, the Texas Republican Party said Wylie was mistaken in his testimony and that the party is not against renaming places with the word “negro” in them.
“Dave Wylie was mistaken when he stated that the Texas GOP was against the renaming of geographic locations,” said Luke Twombly of the Republican Party of Texas, in a written statement. “Our legislative priority is about keeping the names and locations of current monuments, not about renaming geographic features such as lakes, hills, creeks, etc. The party has no issue with renaming terrain features that have offensive names.”
State Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat, said his bill “simply implores that these names are changed for the good of Texas.”
Gary Bledsoe, the president of the Texas NAACP, explained that in the 1960s, then-President John F. Kennedy ordered the N-word be changed to “negro” for all geographic sites. But he said that is clearly not sufficient for the people who have to see and read those names all around Texas to this day.
“We must make a statement that official names based on race as these are are completely inappropriate,” Bledsoe said.
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, an arm of the Department of the Interior, oversees the process for renaming land units and geographic features.
If Miles’ legislation becomes law, it would call on that board to rename those locations once and for all.
The legislation passed the Senate State Affairs Committee 9-0 on Monday and now heads to the full Senate for a vote.