Raleigh, NC – Today, Congresswoman Deborah Ross (NC-02) sent a letter urging the United States Postal Service (USPS) to change the name of the U.S. Post Office located at 806 Oberlin Road, Raleigh, North Carolina 27605 to the “Oberlin Village Post Office.” This post office is still referred to as the “Cameron Village” Post Office by USPS.
This post office was previously located adjacent to a shopping center which until recently was known as Cameron Village. Named after the owner of the Cameron Plantation, where hundreds of enslaved people were once confined, the name of the post office is an archaic tribute to a horrific past that does not fit the inclusive community that now calls the area home. While the shopping center was recently renamed the “Village District,” the post office still bears the name “Cameron Village”—despite the name’s troubling history and its new location farther away from the shopping center.
Sabrina Goode, Executive Director of Friends of Oberlin Village said, “It’s historically significant that the USPS is located in the Oberlin Baptist Church, which was founded by former slave Plummer T. Hall. The church has served the Oberlin community for over 140 years. The renaming of the current Post Office would be an acknowledgement of this beloved community that has contributed in many ways to the City of Raleigh.”
The letter read in part: “Its new location, in a property owned by Oberlin Baptist Church, lies within the geographic boundary of Oberlin Village, one of the last surviving antebellum settlements founded by a free Black person in the State of North Carolina. After reconstruction, the community became a welcoming refuge for newly-freed slaves who had just gained their freedom from the nearby Cameron Plantation.
“Given these factors, I strongly urge the U.S. Postal Service to consider updating the name of this post office to the “Oberlin Village Post Office,” to better reflect its new geographic location and to end the commemoration of a plantation and its slaveholding owner.”
Full text of the letter is available here.
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