Activists want N-word gone from Calif. gravestones
By LIEN HOANG, Associated Press
May 5, 2011 4:59 PM CDT
This photo provided by the Army Corps of Engineers and taken in the 1950's, graves of the unknown are seen marked at the Negro Hill Cemetery, in Negro Hill, Calif. The burial plots from Negro Hill went unmarked for more than half a century _ until a contractor hired by the Army Corps of Engineers moved...   (Associated Press)

Time has weathered the 36 concrete gravestones in a dusty, half-century-old cemetery tucked away in a corner of California's former gold fields. Time has not erased, however, the bigotry of a bygone era carved into the markers.

The dead, both black and white, had been moved from a Gold Rush-era hamlet known as Negro Hill in the 1950s to make way for a reservoir.

The problem is the way the markers continue to identify them almost 60 years later:

"Unknown. Moved from Nigger Hill Cemetery by U.S. Government - 1954."

Now activists are trying to get the markers replaced with ones bearing what they say was the original name, Negro Hill.

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On the Web:

Army Corps of Engineers documents on Negro Hill: http://www.spk.usace.army.mil/NegroHillCemetery.html

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