CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland’s major league baseball team has gone through its fair share of name changes since being founded in 1901. But in 1915, the team became permanently known as the Indians. Indigenous and Native American groups have been pleading with the team to drop the name ever since. 

What You Need To Know

  • More than 80 northeast organizations and businesses are actively engaged in efforts for a name change for the Cleveland Indians

  • Activists said the team name and retired logo has caused harm to native communities

  • In July, the Indians organization released a statement expressing their commitment to engaging the community in regard to their team name

“We’ve been shouting it, and marching and chanting, 'Change the name, change the logo' for so long. And somewhere along the line, they missed the first half of that message. And now they're hearing that part of the message," said Philip Yenyo, the executive director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio.

The American Indian Movement of Ohio is an organization that has been at the forefront of educating the public on native and indigenous history and cultures for more than 60 years. Yenyo said when the team did away with the controversial logo, known as Chief Wahoo before the 2019 season, they took one step toward reducing natives to stereotypes and harmful caricatures. But he and Marlys Rambeau, the chairwoman of the Lake Erie Native American Council, are urging the organization to do away with the team name. 

“The word 'Indian'—that's the colonizer's name for us. That's the government's name for us. Every tribe has their own name that they refer to themselves as. This name is outdated; it's generic, and it just really needs to be put to rest," Rambeau said. 

More than 80 businesses and organizations around Ohio support the name change, including Progressive Insurance, the YMCA of Greater Cleveland, the ACLU of Ohio and Black Lives Matter Cleveland. 
Yenyo said the name and retired logo which are fixtures around the city of Cleveland and at Progressive Field has caused real harm to native communities. 

“You're afraid to say who you are and what you are. Because of that, kids walking up in your face and we've heard all the stories from our children, how they're treated in the schools,” Yenyo said.

“It’s about your self-esteem, it's about your dignity as a native person. It's about how others perceive you," Rambeau said.

In July, The Washington Redskins were renamed to the Washington Football Team. The move came as institutions, governments and sports organizations faced a racial reckoning and calls for equality. In that same month, the Indians organization released a statement expressing their commitment to engaging the community and appropriate stakeholders to determine the best path forward with regard to their team name.

“I was sort of disheartened by a little bit of it, because in my viewpoint if you're gonna do the right thing, then just do it!” Yenyo said.

Although Yenyo is cautiously optimistic about the name change, he and other Cleveland Indigenous Coalition members like Christopher Begay said now is the time for the team to be on the right side of history.

“I believe the conditions are right for us to make that change, and I believe society is really focused on demanding that change—believe that this is the face of that change. If it's actually going to happen in mainstream society. There's no better example than this right here, changing the name.” Begay said.

“Our people have struggled for so long, and there's a lot more struggling that's going on. Take this step forward. Just like in 2018, when they got rid of the logo, it's just another big step of unifying us as human beings," Yenyo said.