Thanks to the work of a Moorpark College history professor, a Southern California mountain will be renamed to honor the man who first settled in the area and erase the original racial slur.

History Prof. Patricia Colman and the National Park Service have been working together since 2005 to change the name from Negrohead to Ballard Mountain in honor of the first settler, John Ballard, who was African American.
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According to Colman, the name change will take effect in about 10-12 months.
“We need to start recognizing all pioneers, black, and white, whatever, so we can get a better understanding,” she said. “”This isn’t just black history, it’s all history.”

Colman, who had worked for the National Parks Service before becoming fulltime faculty at Moorpark College in 2005, began the study while she was working part time at both the college and the Park Service.
She was asked to do a study of the settling of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Even after starting fulltime as a history professor, Colman said, “I couldn’t put it down.”
While searching through census records for 1900, Colman came across a settler that was not listed as white; instead there was an N in the column for race. Colman was very intrigued.
“This was the first and only black family that lived in the mountains that early,”
she said.
The settler was an African American man by the name of John Ballard.
According to Colman’s research, Ballard came to Los Angeles sometime in the 1850’s. During that time there were only a handful of African Americans living in Los Angeles.
In 1859, Ballard married a woman named Amanda. Ballard was also a trustee and one of the founding members of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in L.A.

With the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862, Ballard as an American-born citizen was allowed to claim government land, claiming ownership after five years. Ballard and his wife were able to own land in the Santa Monica Mountains in the 1800’s. In later years Ballard’s daughter, Alice, filed a claim that adjoined their land.
“He was a pillar of the black community in the 19th century and helped build Los Angeles,” Colman said.

Neighboring white settlers named Ballard’s land a Niggerhead Mountain. The racial slur remained unchanged, until the 1960’s. Colman said that she was still verifying the possibility that President Lyndon Johnson had the named changed from Niggerhead to Negrohead during his administration.

Ballard lived on his claim, until his death in 1905.