No folks, I’m not making this up. There really is a mountain in Los Angeles County called “Negrohead Mountain”.

 

Apparently it’s named after a former slave,  John Ballard, who moved to the Malibu area in the 1880s, and owned around 320 acres of land.  The U.S. Geographical Survey has the mountain on record as “Negrohead” which is a lot better than what Ballard’s neighbors use to call it – “Niggerhead Mountain”.

 

Anyone who has ever been to Malibu knows that the city is whiter than wonder bread. Over 91 percent to be exact. If I had of known that Nigger Mountain was looking over me when I hit up a Malibu beach, I would have hightailed my behind out of there.

 

Wanna go hiking near Negro Mountain? Hell. to. the. naw.

 

Fortunatly some city officials are thinking it’s about time to change the name of the mountain. They are petitioning to change the name to “Ballard Mountain”.  I could hike in Ballard Mountain. Or maybe not since Malibu goes up in flames just about every year.

 

 

John Ballard definitely deserves proper recognition. The dude owned a delivery service, lots of land, founded the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in the area, and didn’t leave town when cracker ass crackers burned down his cabin. The story goes Ballard actually posted a sign after his property was burned down that said:

This was the work of the devil.

 

The devil would have to be the only one who would object to this name change. But we are talking about Los Angeles County, the same place that’s home to the Compton High School Tarbabes (errbody says ”tar babies”). True story.

 

 

Photos of  Negrohead Mountain and Mr. Ballard are from the Los Angeles Times

Tags: Ballard Mountain, Compton High School, Compton Tarbabes, John Ballard, Malibu, Negrohead Mountain