California's Negrohead peak renamed after black pioneer

LOS ANGELES - A peak previously known as Negrohead Mountain in Southern California's Santa Monica range has been officially renamed in honor of a black pioneer who settled the area in the 19th century.

The 2,031-foot mountain near Malibu, the highest peak in the area, became Ballard Mountain after John Ballard, a blacksmith and former slave who bought land on the mountain in 1880.

The name originally contained a vulgar racial slur, but it was changed to "negro" in the 1960s.

About 90 people, including two dozen descendants, one of them great-grandson Reggie Ballard, 85, attended the renaming ceremony Saturday at the site in Seminole Hot Springs.

Ballard and others founded Los Angeles' African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1869. He left for the mountains a decade later, and historians believe his family was fleeing segregationist policies in the city. - AP