Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas, is under fire for leasing a hunting camp with a racist epithet in its name.

Perry's father, and later the candidate himself, leased the "Niggerhead" camp in West Texas. The offensive name appeared a large rock at the site for decades, The Washington Post first reported on Sunday.

“It’s just what it was called from Day One,” Wallar Overton, the son of Perry's scoutmaster, told The New York Times. “I personally am not offended by the name, and I don’t like the word. That’s just what people call it."

Perry insists his father painted over the rock in the early 1980s but visitors say the name remained much longer, even after Perry took over the lease. A rival GOP candidate, Herman Cain, said he was offended.

"There isn’t a more vile, negative word than the n-word,” Cain said on Fox. “And for him to leave it there as long as he did before he painted over it, it’s just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country.”

Get the Story:
At Rick Perry’s Texas hunting spot, camp’s old racially charged name lingered (The Washington Post 10/2)
Rick Perry deflects scrutiny over Texas hunting camp, is blasted by Herman Cain (The Washington Post 10/3)
Snag for Perry: Offensive Name at Texas Camp (The New York Times 10/3)