Parks Stewardship Forum

Place name reconciliation works to align the nation’s place name landscape with the nation’s ongoing progress toward the values of truth and justice. The emphasis of place name reconciliation is reform. It is not about erasing names and histories from the American landscape, but correcting the use of derogatory place names and addressing the harm they inflict upon discriminated groups along with how they damage wider possibilities for cohesive social relations in the nation. Reconciliation em-phasizes that the nation needs public name symbols that help citizens adequately understand and mutually respect the country’s socio-cultural differences.