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“Every year, half a million hikers scale 2,600-foot Piestewa Peak, one of the highest crests in Phoenix and recently renamed as a memorial to Army Spc. Lori Piestewa, the first Native American woman to die in combat on foreign soil. But to reach the hiking trail, visitors first must travel Squaw Peak Drive, a mile-long residential street at the heart of a controversy that is pitting lawmakers against property owners. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton last fall began pushing to change the street’s name, which includes a derogatory term for Native American women.
“The current street name is derogatory and offensive to many, especially Native Americans,” Stanton said in an email to ICMN. “Per my request, staff is looking to change it in a manner that’s least inconvenient to people living near Piestewa Peak.””
– Indian Country Today, Natives and City of Phoenix Push for Squaw Peak Drive Name Change.
“When visitors hike the gnarled ridges of Piestewa Peak in east Phoenix, they are greeted by a controversial vestige of the mountain’s past.
“Squaw Peak Drive” reads a sign at the head of the road leading to the summit trail, one of the most popular hikes in the state. The street name is a holdover from when the mountain was uniformly known as Squaw Peak.
The mountain’s name changed more than a decade ago, at the urging of then-Gov. Janet Napolitano and Native American advocates, who consider the old title derogatory. They convinced a state board to name it in honor of Lori Piestewa, the first American Indian woman killed in combat with the U.S. military in 2003.”
– AZ Central, Does this Phoenix street name promote racism?.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #11 – Rename Squaw Peak.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
Creative Commons License
This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
