Hello Friends and believers in Justice,

Our little effort has really taken off, gaining over 100 signatures in just a few days! To continue the momentum, and because the naming of things has been in the news lately, I’ve written a short "What's in a name?" article to submit to a couple of local papers, and thought I’d ask if you all could take the time to do a bit as well. Could you please help grow this effort by sharing the petition with your friends and contacts, either on social media or through email? It’s clear that most of the folks that have signed are people we’ve reached out to directly, and that personal effort can help this reach the kind of numbers that could have a real impact.

How many signatures do we need? Well, 500 is a nice round number, and 1000 sounds like it packs a punch. Let’s give it another push, and see where we can take it.

Thanks for your time, I know you all are so busy working for a better world in many other ways as well!

What’s in a name?

While the naming of things has been in the national news lately, I thought it might be a good time to look a little closer at one of the names we see around here and what it means to honor it with it’s ubiquity. I don’t know how much you know about Governor Dodge, the person. He was the first Governor of this state, and for that reason our beloved little town that grew around his mining camp, and the beautiful state park just North of it bear his name. It might or might not surprise you to learn that he was also involved in enslavement and bloodshed.

Henry Dodge came here in 1827 after having had his home foreclosed on. He bullied his way onto a piece of land outside of the officially agreed upon mining district and brought 5 enslaved people to work there, Toby, Tom, Lear, Joe, and Jim. The area was officially a “free” territory at the time, but may have had several hundred enslaved people working in the mining camps during the lead boom. Dodge, who promised the slaves he brought here their freedom when he arrived, did not release them from their bondage until after he became Governor 11 years later and political and popular pressure finally forced him to.

On his path from busted claimstaker to Territorial Governor, Dodge bullied his way past the territorial laws and the local garrison, and took command of the militia raised to route Black Hawk and his followers after they reentered their homelands East of the Mississippi. The war against Blackhawk, (Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa) included several majorbattles, beginning with Stillman’s Run in Northern Illinois and turning a corner at Wisconsin Heights. On August 2nd, 1832, the militia, along with regular army troops under Colonel Atkinson, trapped a large group of fleeing Sauk and Fox against the banks of the Mississippi, and murdered them as they tried to escape, killing hundreds of men, women, and children, and mutilating their bodies.

Is it right that we should continue to put up Dodge’s name everywhere but not discuss these unpleasant parts of his history? What does it mean to the African American and Native descendants of this land to honor his name but not tell their story as well? How can we tell the shared story of this region in a balanced way if we only give honorable mention to the rulers, regardless of their acts during their climb to power?

For these reasons, our little family has started a petition demanding to remove governor Dodge’s name from the park, and asking that a new name be chosen with the counsel of the Ho Chunk and Meskwaki (Sauk), as well as the African American community. Importantly, the petition also asks that an interpretive exhibit should be installed which brings light to this dark history, as well as a statement acknowledging the responsibility for the stewardship of this land. We hope that this will continue to the conversation about the parts of our shared history which have been buried for so long. The Governor Dodge State Park name change petition can be found at change.org.