After a half-century of activism, many Native Americans thought a bitter debate over the capital’s football mascot was over two years ago when the team became the Washington Commanders.
The organization left behind the racist slur “redskins” as its name and retired the logo that was closely tied to that name: the profile of a Native man with long hair and two feathers.
Now, a white Republican U.S. senator from Montana is reviving the debate by blocking a bill funding the revitalization of the decrepit RFK Stadium for the Commanders, who have been playing miles away in Maryland. Sen. Steve Daines says he will block the legislation until the NFL and the Commanders honor the former logo in some form.
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Daines declined requests to explain his stance or respond to criticism from Indigenous people who say such efforts are rooted in racism.
The original logo was designed by a member of the Blackfeet Nation in the state of Montana. Some tribal members take pride in it and the legacy of the man who helped design it in the early ’70s — Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, a former Blackfeet Nation tribal chairman and former president of the National Congress of the American Indian, the country’s oldest Native American and Alaska Native advocacy organization.
Native American leaders protest against the Redskins team name and logo Oct. 24, 2019, outside U.S. Bank Stadium
