For more than a century, the professional baseball team in Cleveland, Ohio, has been called the Indians. But that won’t be the case for much longer. The Major League Baseball (MLB) team is officially changing its name to the Cleveland Guardians before the 2022 season.
The Washington Football Team, based in the nation’s capital, is also set to announce a new name and logo early next year. That National Football League (NFL) team dropped the name Redskins in 2020.
The teams’ decisions to replace their Native-themed names is part of a trend. At least 43 U.S. schools have also removed such names or symbols this year, the National Congress of American Indians says.
“Folks believe that [team] mascots are who Native people are,” says Leah Salgado, a citizen of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. She runs IllumiNative, a group that works to make sure all