National Audubon Society Will Keep Its Name Despite Ties to Slavery

The Nationwide Audubon Society introduced on Wednesday that its board of administrators had voted to retain the group’s title regardless of stress to finish its affiliation with John James Audubon, the Nineteenth-century naturalist and illustrator who enslaved individuals.

The hen conservation group mentioned its resolution got here after greater than a yearlong course of that included enter from tons of of its members, volunteers and donors. Regardless of Mr. Audubon’s historical past as an enslaver with racist views towards Black and Indigenous individuals, Elizabeth Grey, the chief govt of the Nationwide Audubon Society, mentioned in a press release on Wednesday that the board of administrators “determined that the group transcends one particular person’s title.”

She added that the title Audubon had “come to represent our mission and important achievements that this group has made in its lengthy historical past.”

The choice to maintain the title bucks a latest development of social reckoning that had led to renaming faculties, parks and different organizations named after individuals with racist histories.

This can be a growing story.