Effort grows to erase n-word from Calif. cemetery

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. (AP) - For more than a half-century, 36 grave markers in an El Dorado Hills cemetery 30 miles east of Sacramento have been marked with the provocative racial epithet...

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. (AP) — An effort to bury the N-word at a California graveyard is gaining momentum.

For more than a half-century, 36 grave markers in an El Dorado Hills cemetery 30 miles east of Sacramento have been marked with the provocative racial epithet.

The graves are for people who had been buried in the community of Negro Hill, which dates back to the Gold Rush. But the bodies were moved in 1954 and someone in an official capacity ordered grave markers using the slur.

Negro Hill Burial Ground Project leader Michael Harris tells the Sacramento Bee that he’s been trying for a decade to get the offensive word removed from the cemetery.

A county spokesman says a proposal to do so is expected to go to county supervisors in the coming weeks.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

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