After 80 years of bird watching, local Audubon seeks more inclusive, youthful name

Does the word Audubon conjure thoughts of tiny golden warblers, shiny ducks and soaring eagles? Or the national organization that promotes watching and defending their shrinking habitat?

The South Bend-Elkhart Audubon Society is taking steps to remove the word Audubon, saddled with the discovery — just a few years ago — that John James Audubon held slaves. Some writers believe the wildlife artist, now dead for nearly 173 years, espoused racist views.

President Tai Gunter says the local board members aren’t interested in “cancel culture” or erasing history, but they also don’t want to accept something that seems to close doors. They even want to punt the word “society” because it feels exclusive.

Rather, he says they want the public to see their chapter — which now skews mostly white and older — as inclusive and welcoming of diverse, young members.

“Racially, it’s important to take that stand,” he says. “We want to be clear to everybody that what John James Audubon did, we cannot accept it. It’s a reckoning point.”

All of this springs from the National Audubon Society’s own reckoning with the newfound truth. In 2023, its board debated a name change but voted to keep it as it is, causing some staff to denounce it and a few board members to leave. The board also gave chapters across the U.S. the freedom to change their own names.

Jorden Giger of Black Lives Matter in South Bend has watched that national debate. He says the change makes sense, given the country’s recent uprisings over monuments for slave owners and Christopher Columbus.

“Especially Black people,” he advises, “if they read about the man (Audubon), they’d be reluctant to join an organization that upheld someone who enslaved. I couldn’t see myself being part of an organization named after an enslaver.”

But simply changing the name won’t attract diverse folks, he points out. He suggests going into schools to teach kids about birds. Or going wherever the kids are.

“We need to reach out to those communities,” Gunter agrees. “What can we do to be part of their communities?”

In 2020, the chapter took a “tiny step” toward “racial diversity and inclusivity," then-President Kristen Sweinhart had told me, when it donated an illustrated kids’ book about a young girl of color, “Bird Count” by Susan Edwards Richmond, to all of the libraries in public schools across St. Joseph and Elkhart counties.

“We are not on our deathbed by any means,” board Secretary John Bentley affirms, noting that the membership of some 700 people is neither rising nor declining.

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In fact, it remains one of the state’s busiest Audubon chapters with regular field trips, an annual Christmas Bird Count and monthly membership meetings with a speaker at South Bend’s Rum Village Nature Center.

It owns and maintains a wooded nature sanctuary in Mishawaka, just south of George Wilson Park, where it hosts public pancake breakfasts on three summer holidays. And for many years, the chapter has provided grants to promote conservation and education.

Who was Audubon?

Audubon died in 1851. He’d exquisitely painted birds so that they could be identified in the wild. The prominent book “The Birds of America” showcased his engravings of more than 400 birds.

But the first Audubon Societies weren’t born until 40 to 50 years later, initially as groups who protested the killing of egrets and other wild birds for feathered hats. The groups claimed Audubon’s name because they saw him as inspirational.

“He was relevant in that time,” Gunter says. “It doesn’t mean we took his contribution away. We’re not trying to diminish that.”

But he says the word Audubon is now vague.

“Many people aren’t familiar with the national organization, and only know Autobahn to be a road without a speed limit in Germany,” Gunter writes in the chapter’s newsletter, sent to members this week.

He says the chapter is seizing this chance to finally put the word “bird” in its name “to say what we do.”

How they'll decide

The chapter’s board reached out to its members last year, seeking input on whether or not to make the change. Gunter says 40 to 50 people responded with a mix of opinions. Then, on Jan. 14, the board voted 15-1 to recommend a change. It is now crafting a proposed new name while it continues to survey members' preferences.

Ultimately, the general membership will have to ratify the new moniker. Or they could reject changing it altogether. A mail ballot will go out with the newsletter in March or April.

The board is leaning toward a name that at least 10 other Audubon chapters across the country have switched to, Bird Alliance, including the Chicago Bird Alliance, Detroit Bird Alliance and Badgerland Bird Alliance (in Wisconsin). More are in the works.

The board now ponders what words to use at the front: Michiana? Northern Indiana? North-Central Indiana? “South Bend-Elkhart" is dated because the service area has grown into parts of Marshall County.

Separately, the Indiana Audubon Society isn’t a chapter of the national organization, but Executive Director Brad Bumgardner says the "larger dialogue" has led this independent group to the early phases of exploring a name change.

With a diversity and equity committee on hand, the IAS has sent out a membership survey to assess attitudes and another survey to gain a sense of the diversity of its 1,600 members in more than 20 states, Bumgardner says.

Letting go or embracing?

Chapter board member Lindsay Grossman of Mishawaka admits she was indecisive about the name leading up to the board’s vote. Yes, the change would let go of a piece of heritage, a name and an identity that’s tied to the contributions of many people who came before her.

But she looked to the future, ultimately feeling the chapter “could only gain more … by making people feel included” — especially young people, she says, who have no knowledge of Mr. Audubon.

“We should do what the young folks want,” says Bentley, now in his 70s, who’d joined with his wife when they were in their 30s. “They are the ones who are going to be carrying the ball.”

Bentley served as chapter president at the only other time when it changed its name, in 2000, a hotly debated move, he recalls, that simply wedged in the word Elkhart to reflect its broadened membership. It had been the South Bend Audubon Society since its founding on Feb. 11, 1944. Some begged: Why change now?

“Audubon was the typical educated guy who thought it was OK to have slaves,” says board member Jude Keltner, who at first opposed the recent change, seeing it as a lost story and a lost chance to learn. “If we erase all of these names, how do we understand systemic racism?”

Condemn the “egregious” act of slavery, she says, but respect the person’s work.

She eventually turned the corner and echoed Bentley’s sentiment, saying, “It makes sense to acquiesce to youthful wisdom.”

Doug Gray of Bristol, whose late aunt and uncle had been part of the chapter since its early days, says he’ll quit his local membership if the chapter name changes. He’d still pay membership dues to the National Audubon Society.

“You can’t rewrite history,” he argues.

Now in his 60s, he agrees that the chapter needs younger and more diverse people but doesn't think a name change will do anything.

He says his wife, Heidi, a past president, may follow suit, though she’ll continue to help with a new sanctuary in Goshen that the chapter is acquiring.

New bird names, too

Meanwhile, other name changes are ruffling birders’ feathers. The American Ornithological Society has decided to change all of the English-language bird names for North American species that honor a person. It would affect about 150 names, including the likes of Cooper’s hawk, Swainson’s thrush and Kirtland’s warbler.

This comes from a movement claiming that some of the namesakes did horrible things, such as taking slaves and seizing Indigenous lands. But, rather than single out which names those are, the OAS seeks to switch all of these monikers to more descriptive wording.

There is a national movement to counteract the OAS’ decision.

IndyStar reports: Plan to remove eponymous names from some birds ruffling feathers in ornithological world

Locally, Grossman feels less convicted about this change. There have been bird name changes throughout the decades for various reasons. What’s different now, she says, is the sheer number that would change at once.

Grossman hopes that the new descriptive names will be more helpful. She laments the current name red-bellied woodpecker because it’s hard to actually see the bird’s red belly patch, which is hidden when the bird flies or perches. A lot of times, she says, people mistakenly call it a red-headed woodpecker.

Ronda DeCaire is well aware of birders’ “red-headed” mistakes as each year she coordinates Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count in Elkhart County. She merely adapts. When she sees the red-headed woodpecker on volunteer counters’ lists, she’ll reach out with a photo to accurately confirm what they saw. Likewise, some volunteers list the old name English sparrow for a nonnative species that is now called the house sparrow.

Common ground

Words can splinter or unite us. Our common ground is found in the same sky and earth and how we share those blessings.

When asked if he was a bird watcher, Giger quickly said no. Then he thought of growing up in South Bend’s LaSalle Park neighborhood in the 1990s, where elders set out birdbaths and checked on the birds at dawn. They’d point out crows and their crazy habits, such as eating from the trash. They may not have had bird books and binoculars or rattled off colorful bird names, but elders were still observers of nature. He says it’s part of a culture they’d brought from growing up in the rural South.

When they saw birds fly south in the fall, Giger recalls, elders waxed fondly about the southern states where those birds were headed.

“They (elders) believe fish tastes better in the South,” he says.

Find columnist Joseph Dits on Facebook at SBTOutdoorAdventures or 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend Elkhart Audubon Society seeks name change for diversity youth