White Island (Brooklyn)

About

White Island, sometimes erroneously called Mau Mau Island, is a small uninhabited island in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, located between Gerritsen Creek and Mill Creek in the Marine Park recreation area. Historically, the area around White Island was a salt marsh with shifting topography. The island came into existence permanently sometime after 1917, and most likely formed in 1934 as dumping led to the current shoreline.

The name White Island has always been used by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. The name “Mau Mau” was suggested to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names in the 1970s and rejected as offensive and lacking widespread use. The racist term for Black assertiveness (derived from the British disparagement of the Kenyan anti-colonial uprising) was briefly in vogue at that time due to the popularity of Tom Wolfe’s essays and 1970 book “Radical Chic & Mau Mauing the Flak-Catchers.” The rejected name was accidentally applied during a database update in the 21st century, according to NOAA. Erik Baard discovered the controversy while researching his book "Paddling New York City" (Falcon Guides) and informed the agency, which corrected its nautical charts to conform to the official park name, White Island.