WINONA, Minn. – The Winona Journal generally follows Associated Press preferences on news style but not this time. Unlike the AP, the Winona news site will continue to refer to the tallest peak in North America as Denali. It’s the name used by native Koyukon people as long as anyone remember. AP policy is to follow geographic names as designated by governing authorities, hence Beijing for Peking, Myamar for Birma, and for a while Stalingrad for St. Petersburg. The Denali is an issue because President Trump issued an executive rdeer to take “Denali” off maps. The Winona Journal sees Trump’s action as a crude, rude and white supremacist slap at indigenous people. Said Editor John Vivian: “We will not participate in this insult.” In fact, the McKinley name is historically a late-comer. In 1896 a non-indigenous gold prospector presumptively proclaimed the peak as Mount McKinley in his enthusiasm for Republican presidential candidate William McKinley. Ethnically sensitive President Barrack Obama reverted the name to its Kuyukon roots in 2015. About Trump’s companion proclamation to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, the Winona Journal won’t go along either. Tromp has no legal authority to name geographic features outside the United States. The AP won’t go along either, nor will cartographers.
Denali. At 20,300 feet the tallest peak on the continent.
What will General Motors do? Denali has been a luxury trim level for GMC vehicles since 1999. Would you want to be seen driving a McKinley?
About lionizing McKinley
History has not been kind to William McKinley’s presidency from 1897 to 1991. He was a pawn of Gilded Age robber barons in a period of unbridled capitalism excesses, greed and abuses of the working class. He championed American expansionism, colonialism and imperialism. He introduced so-called protctive tariffs that ushered in the 1899 economic recession which in which business activity fell 15.8% and trade and industrial activity fell 8.8%.