A Northern California county has voted to rename Jim Crow Road after a debate over the racist implications of the name and accusations of "woke cancel culture."
The 4-1 vote by the Sierra County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday came after property owners along the road, located about 3 miles from Downieville, asked for a name change in early April. The name will be changed to Crow City Road, as recommended by the county's historical society.
The controversy over the road's name unfolded in this community about 100 miles northeast of Sacramento. Sierra County is one of the least ethnically and racially diverse counties in California: About 93% of the 3,000 people who make up Sierra County are white.
"I am very pleased at the action of my colleagues and all who weighed in on this issue," said Lee Adams, a Sierra County supervisor who originally brought the issue before the board. "Not only has an insensitive name been retired, but the new name acknowledges the lost community of Crow City that was a very early part of Sierra County history."
The road was said to be named after a Native Hawaiian man who came to the area as a Gold Rush pioneer in 1849. There also exists a Jim Crow Canyon, Jim Crow Creek and there was once a community known as Crow City.
The words "Jim Crow" have come to stand for the racist laws that for generations kept Black people segregated in the American South. The phrase itself, which predates the Gold Rush, originated in blackface minstrelsy. (Last year, 2,500 miles away in Georgia, Jim Crow Road — named for Glennon "Jim" Crow — was renamed G.C. Crow Road.)
