The city's historic committee said they are considering recommending a name change for Old Slave Road in Wildwood, Mo.

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The recommendation could come at the end of March, and the city council could vote on the change in April, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The private street has six homes on it and runs by a historic cemetery, The Post-Dispatch reported.

Lynne Martin, the chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission, said the name is a misnomer and slaves never used the road.

Those that live on the road said the name may offend people and discourage them from living on it, The Post-Dispatch said.

The property owners are recommending naming the road Elijah Madison Lane in honor of a former slave who grew up in the area and served in a segregated unit during the Civil War.

But others say the change is an effort to sanitize history and stigmatize the word slave, The Post-Dispatch said.

"I couldn't disagree more," Esley Hamilton, a preservation historian said. "We should not allow the word 'slave' to be stigmatized any more than we should allow the word 'Jew' to be used in that way."