South Dakota to remove offensive place names on reservation

Monday, April 8, 2013  

The South Dakota Board on Geographic Names is moving to change some offensive place names on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe suggested new names for five features. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names will have the final say on the new names.

“Years ago, all the names — all the creeks, the buttes, everything — they were in Lakota,” Joyce Whiting, a project review officer for the Tribal Historic Preservation Office, told the Associated Press.

A 2001 law required the state to address offensive place names.

Get the Story:
Naughty names nixed on Pine Ridge reservation (AP 4/7)