PERFECT PROSE—Elizabeth Gillis-Smith, foreground, who teaches poetry at Moorpark College, encourages her students to write about John Ballard, the first black settler in the Santa Monica Mountains. In the background is Negrohead Mountain, which has been renamed Ballard Mountain. A movement to rename a peak in the Santa Monica Mountains after the first black man to settle there has inspired poetry by several Moorpark College students.

Students enrolled in a history and English class taught by Ranford Hopkins and Beth GillisSmith became enthralled by the tale of John Ballard, a former slave who built a cabin in 1888 atop a 2,000foot volcanic peak in the Lobo Canyon area of the Santa Monica Mountains.

The mountain sits behind the home of Paul and Leah Culberg in rural Agoura. The Culbergs, Nick Noxon and other concerned citizens urged the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to change the mountain's name from Negrohead Mountain to Ballard Mountain.

On Feb. 24, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky officially requested the historical name be changed, and following approval by the U.S. Geological Survey, Negrohead Mountain (formerly on record under the epithet "Niggerhead Mountain") will become Ballard Mountain.

The Moorpark students recently visited a picturesque location with the mountain as a backdrop and read the poems they'd written about John Ballard and his mountain life. The poems also touched on racism and bigotry.

James Yeary's poem referred to Ballard's home as a "shanty in the mountains." Sara Justin wrote that Ballard "dreamt of a land of true equality" and "accomplished the unimaginable in his time."

Morgan Vahradian wrote about Ballard's home: "Yes it was a shack, but happiness and atmosphere was not what it lacked."

Jacquelyn Tomasi imagined how Ballard must have felt about racism: "I am John Ballard . . . Who hates ignorance, jealousy and the hatred of my neighbors . . . who dreams of not being judged by my color, but how I treat others."

Student Brett Caldwell wrote about life on the mountain.
No, it wasn't always easy
No, it wasn't always hard
But a man's gotta work,
For a family, for a yard.
A mountain?
For me?
I'll take it.

Chris Stanton imagined a range of emotion that Ballard might have felt during his life in his poem, "King of Negro Hill":

For nothing I used to work the land

Simply because I was the darker man

Never imagine that even I can

Become the king of Negro Hill

Los Angeles, prosperity seem to come my way

Now making wages signify a new day

Where even darker complexions receive pay

In order to stay king of Negro Hill

White men moving west, oppression returned

The concept of segregation soon relearned

I have to give up all I earned?

Not the king of Negro Hill!

He say if I work it, this land I'll own

So I will work it with every bone

This hill, I plan to call my home

'Til they crown me king of Negro Hill

The students weren't the only ones moved by Ballard's rugged life in the hills. Gillis-Smith, who teaches the English portion of the class, penned her own poem called "Voices at Ballard Mountain." After recounting Ballard's move to California from Kentucky as a free man, his struggle to keep his dreams alive and his constant battle against racism, she ended her poem with a call for change:

We listen now, hoping to hear, perhaps, what was never said.

We bring songs for the unsung hero, whose name was reduced to disparaging slang.

Re-name the mountain!

Ballard—a pioneer seeking a new dream, paving the way for a new road

That leads to a California where each voice is valued.

Just listen.

Hopkins said he was taken by the fact that Ballard's life contradicts the stereotype of African Americans living in ghettos.

"There were excellent black communities, and in fact they were at the forefront of pioneer living in the greater Los Angeles area," he said.

Patty Colman, a history professor at Moorpark College and editor of the Journal of Ventura County History, has been researching and documenting the details of Ballard's life in preparation for the renaming of the mountain, which could take up to seven months.