The environmental group NYC Audubon voted this week to drop “Audubon” from its name, joining a nationwide movement to reject associations with 19th century naturalist John Jacob Audubon, due to his ownership of enslaved people and white supremacist views.
explaining the decision to retain the name, Elizabeth Grey, the CEO of the National Audubon Society, said that despite John James Audubon’s history as “an enslaver whose racist views and treatment of Black and Indigenous people must be reckoned with,” board members ultimately decided “that the organization transcends one person’s name. ‘Audubon’ has come to symbolize our mission and significant achievements that this organization has made in its long history.
Just in the last day since we made this announcement, we’ve seen a number of new people sign up for our email lists and several donations come in as a result of the decision to change our name.“Audubon was also a slaveholder,” wrote Nobles, “a point that many people don’t know or, if they do, tend to ignore or excuse.”
“The next morning,” Nobles wrote, “Audubon took them back to ‘the plantation of their first master’ and convinced the planter to buy the enslaved people back from the masters to which the family had been divided and sold.” “What we heard,” said Wilson, “was the very real emotion and sentiment that staff members of color, board members and volunteers of color felt uncomfortable with the name Audubon.”
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