The Washington Redskins of the National Football League are making a clean break with their past, deleting the
name of founder George Preston Marshall from all official team materials and the stadium’s Ring of Fame.
Marshall was an outspoken segregationist and the final NFL owner to accept Black players on his team.
He did so in 1962 only after President John F. Kennedy’s government threatened to remove the team from the
stadium, which was built on federal land.
Last Monday, the city of Washington demolished Marshall’s statue outside the team’s previous stadium. It’d been
defaced with red paint and graffiti.
Marshall’s granddaughter, Jordan Wright, told The Washington Post that it was past time for the statue to be
demolished.
Marshall relocated the Boston Braves football team to Washington in 1937. He established some professional
football trademarks, such as the halftime show and team fight anthems.
“He was widely considered one of pro football’s greatest innovators, and its leading bigot,” the late Washington Post
sportswriter Shirley Povich reportedly said.
Marshall was an unabashed bigot who refused to integrate his team years after the league began courting Black
players.
When Marshall died in 1969, his will specified that none of his money should go to any entity that supported school
integration.
With Marshall’s history buried, activists argue it’s long past time for the Washington Redskins to change their name,
claiming the name is offensive to Native Americans.
The removal of the Marshall statue and his name is part of a trend in towns and states to demolish monuments and
memorials to historical individuals who, according to activists, promote racism and slavery during the Civil War.
Corporations have joined the push to bury racist symbols. Last week, Quaker Oats stated that it would be removing
the Aunt Jemima name and its 120-year-old trademark of a smiling Black woman from pancake mix and syrup
bottles.
Mars claims that its Uncle Ben’s rice, which features a middle-aged African American man on the packaging, will
“evolve.”
