El Dorado County officials hope to take a firm step to right a 57-year-old wrong at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting, with a proposal to replace 36 headstones at Mormon Island Cemetery that feature a racist slur stamped into the concrete.

The markers are on anonymous graves relocated from the Gold Rush town of Negro Hill before the area was inundated by water behind the Folsom Dam in 1954.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracted to move those graves and those from several other cemeteries and isolated gravesites to be flooded.

However, recently released documents show the Corps consistently used the epithet usually referred to as "the N-word" in the place of "Negro" when referring to the town.

The races of those buried there are unknown. At least some are believed to be white.

"Personally, I think the immediate need is to replace the 36 (markers) and replace them with something respectful," said Supervisor John Knight, whose district includes the cemetery.

The Corps deeded the cemetery to the county 50 years ago.

It is uncertain why they used a word that wasn't accepted in the newspaper in 1954, or why county officials didn't fix it before.

Michael Harris, head of a group he calls the Negro Hill Burial Ground Project, has ascribed it to persistent racism.

Knight has proposed that the county accept the California Prison Industry Authority's offer to foot the bill and do the work to replace the markers.

The new markers would be more substantial than the old ones, which are concrete rectangles almost flush with the ground. In addition, CPIA proposes a monument explaining the history of the markers, with two alternative forms.

One option would include one of the original racist markers, another would not.

The whole matter could be handled at an administrative level, Knight said, but officials have decided to bring it to the Board of Supervisors because of public interest.

"We need to handle it at that level so we can give clear direction to staff," Knight said.

Harris has publicly campaigned against the old markers for about a decade. However, a 1996 proposal to replace the markers – virtually identical to the current one – was derailed after Harris raised objections that are unclear.

Asked for comment on the new proposal, Harris sent an email to The Bee appearing to complain that the proposal doesn't credit him and others for work on the matter, and on elevating the history of African Americans in California.

"(S)adly no mention (is made) of the decade long effort of people of African Descent to embrace and elevate the legacy of our California Pioneers," he wrote. "Our teachers, supporters and friends globally are not happy."

Harris did not expressly support or oppose the proposal.

"(T)he good news (is), our issue will be in full public view … documented and seen globally," he wrote.

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