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Plan to change RI state name advances | General Assembly | projo.com | The Providence Journal

PROVIDENCE -- After one of the most earnest debates of the session thus far, the House late Thursday approved scheduling a referendum on whether to change Rhode Island's formal name from State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to simply Rhode Island.
If approved by the Senate, the question will be on the November 2010 ballot.
"This bill is just what it is, a question," said its sponsor, Joseph Almeida, D-Providence, one of several lawmakers who have pushed for the referendum question for more than a decade. A name change, he said, would erase a word that recalls the centuries of slavery.

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R.I. may vote on striking ‘plantations’ from state’s name | Rhode Island news | projo.com | The Providence Journal

Voters next year may have the opportunity to do something that African-American legislators have been unable to accomplish for decades: strike the phrase ?and Providence Plantations? from the state?s name.
In actions Thursday and Friday that some described as historic, the House and then the Senate voted overwhelmingly to send to voters in November 2010 a constitutional amendment that would rename the state simply ?Rhode Island.?
It?s not quite a done deal yet. Even though two identical bills were passed, one of them must be approved by both sides of the legislature. Senate leaders say they plan to meet again this week, so the Senate will have an opportunity to pass the House bill. House leaders were less specific about when they will meet again saying only that they will come back briefly in July. So that would give them a crack at the Senate bill and provide two possible paths for the question to go to referendum.
The sponsors sounded confident that the voters will finally be able to weigh in on changing the state?s name ? a debate that never before even reached the full House, despite years of efforts by several legislators.
Governor Carcieri does not support the name change, according to spokeswoman Amy Kempe. His argument is similar to those voiced by the handful of legislative opponents. When plantations became part of the state?s name in the 1600s, the word referred to the expanse of settled land in the state. It had nothing to do with the farms cultivated by slaves.
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