Apparently a lot when it comes to how our nation has changed inn the past 100 years. The American Native Americans have fought for and received the name change for many sports franchises including the Washing NFL team, which hasn’t received a replacement yet and most recently the Cleveland Indians.
Related to this story is one that hits close to home. A street that bore the name of an infamous Indian fighter, was unanimously changed at a recent Spokane City Council meeting.
Colonel George Wright, like many Southern and Confederate heroes of the post Civil War movement that commemorated them, was a man who was no friend of the Native American tribes of the Spokane area in the late 1890s. His treatment of the indigenous tribes was comparable to what the Nazis did to the Jews in World War Two.
These changes are long overdue. What to rename a franchise’s name isn’t nearly as important as recognizing the wrongs of the past and correcting them in a timely manner.
Jerry Schellhammer 