The time has come. It is long overdue that we remove the term "plantation" from our subdivision names. There are too many of these neighborhoods to count in Berkeley, Dorchester, and Charleston County and the word is outdated and obsolete. While it may seem small and insignificant, a change like this chips away at the hundreds year old system of white supremacy that has kept black people in America at an almost insurmountable disadvantage.

"By 1776 when the United States severed ties with Great Britain and declared independence, the 13 former colonies had already participated in the Atlantic slave trade for 157 years. A ban on the slave trade would go into effect in 1808, but was often disregarded. By then some 300,000 Africans had already been uprooted and pressed into slavery. Nearly half of them—150,000 people—had been brought in through the country’s largest slave port, Charleston, S.C." - Nina Strochlic for National Geographic, August, 2019

It is our duty as the citizens of Charleston to make this change. As the former largest slave port in the country, it falls on our shoulders, yes, hundreds of years later, to right this wrong. It is not just a word, it is an insult to our black brothers and sisters and it is time for it to go.