Outcry spurs state panel to rename recreation spot
The Negro Bar historic dayuse area at Folsom Lake will be renamed, the California State Park and Recreation Commission unanimously voted on Friday.
The area, which comprises a large sandbar between the city of Folsom (Sacramento County) and the American River as well as the opposite bank of the river, will temporarily be called Black Miners Bar while a more thorough historic research effort takes place that will inform a permanent new name.
The decision, which came a day before a Juneteenth celebration at the location, follows four years of public outreach by the commission as well as several years of public advocacy and online petitions to change the name.
Public commenters, all of whom broadly supported changing the park name, shared passionately about how the name made them and their friends feel scared, hurt or unwelcome.
Ruth Anderson, a longtime Folsom resident, said she has always avoided taking visiting family and friends, especially her Black daughter-in-law and biracial grandchildren, near or past Negro Bar for fear of how it might make them feel.
“I am embarrassed as an American to have that name still aligned with our state park,” she said, adding that she looks forward to the day where she can take her grandchildren not only to play at the lake, but to learn about the history of Black miners.
Tracie Stafford, vice chair of the California Democratic Party Black Caucus, said she was “absolutely triggered” hearing the word “Negro” so many
times during the public meeting, and that she did not expect to have such a visceral reaction to the word.
“It’s not OK,” she said. “I’m sure I am not the only person triggered in this room. If you can’t say it to me, it shouldn’t be in monument, it shouldn’t be all over the city, it shouldn’t be somewhere where we take our kids with no explanation as to what that means.”
Education and emphasis on the history of Black gold miners in the area should be prominent at the park going forward, several commenters said.
In a staff report on the agenda item, parks officials called the Negro Bar Day-Use Area — a name that appears on signage at the campsite, maps and marketing materials in a predominantly white Folsom neighborhood — “one of the more
long-standing park facility naming issues.”
“Over the years an array of stakeholders has discussed this specific facility name and suggested to both change and/or retain the name,” it said. “Those in support of change, naming ‘Negro’ as a dated, derogatory term, and others in opposition, concerned with the potential loss of recognition the name provides to African American presence and participation in the California Gold Rush in this area.”
The name, which first appeared in a newspaper article in 1850, was originally chosen to commemorate the Black gold miners of the 1849 California Gold Rush. But the area was alternately referred to by a racist term for decades, including in The Chronicle and other newspapers. In 1960, the
federal government issued a requirement for the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to change all uses of the offensive term to “Negro” on federal maps.
The naming issue has been brought up to the parks department before — in 1999, the department decided not to change the name. In 2018, an online petition started by Phaedra Jones, an Uber Eats driver from Stockton who came across the sign while driving, brought the issue back to the forefront, and the parks department began “numerous outreach efforts” to gather input and options for new names.
In 2020, those efforts ramped up and stakeholder meetings began.
During stakeholder meetings in April 2021, the majority of attendees recommended changing the name, according to a staff report written by Parks Department’s Deputy Director of Planning and Recreation Services Alex Stehl, and a subsequent survey found the same.
At the meeting Friday, the commission voted on three recommendations outlined in the staff report.
The report recommended that the name be temporarily changed to the Black Miners Bar Day-Use Area, an action it said would address the immediate concern of harm by the current name while retaining the historical significance of the area.
It also requires that the department undergo a one-year “intensive historical research effort” in partnership with the California African American Museum to come up with a research-backed permanent renaming recommendation. Third, it mandates the department should also use the research to build out more historical programming to be put on site to commemorate the “significant contributions” of Black miners during the Gold Rush.
The commissioners voted to take all three actions.
Susan D. Anderson, a history curator for CAAM, gave comments in support of the renaming in a prerecorded video shown at the meeting. She said that renaming the area along with the research effort behind it will usher in a “transformative new era” for state parks as historically marginalized groups can reclaim their history as it relates to California state parks.