BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The Bismarck Park Board has voted to create a formal process for renaming city parks after some residents pushed to have a park stripped of its name because of the “historical trauma” they say is associated with its namesake, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.
Rather than immediately change the name of Custer Park, the board voted Thursday to develop guidelines for renaming parks. A draft of those guidelines will be considered by the board in February.
A member of the Three Affiliated Tribes, M. Angel Moniz, told the board that to some Custer is a reminder of violence and genocide, according to the Bismarck Tribune.
“Naming is important. And the park’s name shouldn’t be a reminder of trauma, as many are still healing from that generational and historical trauma,” Moniz said.
Custer served during the Civil War and fought against Native Americans on the Great Plains in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1868, he launched an attack on Chief Black Kettle’s Southern Cheyenne Village near present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma, in which Native American women were raped and killed in an assault known as the Washita Massacre. Custer spent several years stationed at Fort Abraham Lincoln in Mandan before his death..
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