Pro-Native American activists fighting to save indigenous traditions in nationwide war against wokeness
By: Kerry Byrne (Fox News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
From coast to coast, wokeness is facing a rebellion.
Communities are fighting to reclaim their local heritage after a cancel-culture rampage in recent years eviscerated Native American images, nicknames and tributes at hundreds of schools nationwide.
"We're actually fighting an anti-American movement," Lisa Davis, a pro-Native American activist in Cedar City, Utah, told Fox News Digital.
"The people trying to erase Native American culture are the same people trying to remove Thomas Jefferson and bashing American heritage."
Davis and other Cedar City residents formed the grassroots organization VOICE (Voices of Iron County Education) after the school board voted to eliminate the high school's traditional Redmen name and logo in 2019.
Navajo Julia Casuse graduated from Cedar City High School in Utah. She calls herself "a Redmen through and through." The local school board canceled the school nickname and its Native American imagery in 2019, despite widespread popular support for the name and tradition. (Courtesy Julia Casuse/Navajo Crafting Co.)
"It was an honor to be called the Redmen," Julia Casuse, a "full-blooded Navajo" and graduate of Cedar City High School, told Fox News Digital.
The silversmith said she tells visitors at the family's shop, Navajo Crafting Co., "I'm a Redmen through and through."
The school's nickname is now the Reds.
Yet the irony of the new name is not lost on Cedar City residents. "We went from honoring centuries of American and Native American history to honoring communism," said Davis.
"The people trying to erase Native American culture are the same people trying to remove Thomas Jefferson and bashing American heritage."
Eunice Davidson, a Dakota Sioux and president of the Native American Guardians Association (NAGA), told Fox News Digital, "It's a terrible injustice to these communities,"
She and others claim the decisions to remove Native American images, nicknames and logos are made by local school boards, which are often under pressure from well-funded outside forces.
"The decisions never have popular support," said Davidson, whose organization is based in North Dakota.
"The taxpayer is being shunned and the school boards don't care anymore. It's Marxism and it's taken over the school boards."
The grassroots group VOICE claims that 79% of local residents voted in support of the Redmen in a recent Change.org survey.
Communities around the nation are waging similar battles.
Activists in Killingly, Connecticut are fighting to reclaim the town's Redmen tradition after it was trampled by a statewide mandate to wipe out its own Native American legacy.
Cambridge, New York has taken its fight to save its beloved Indians tradition to the courts — after the Board of Regent announced its plan to trample Native American history across the Empire State.
Local residents recently voted two new pro-Native American candidates onto its school board, including Iroquois Dillon Honyoust.
"When you think about Native Americans, any icon that you see is about strength, honor, pride. Always a positive symbol to portray the strength of our heritage," Honyoust said in an interview with WAMC Northeast Public.
The school board in Southern York County, Pennsylvania voted in January to allow Susquehannock High School to bring back its traditional Warriors name and logo.
The decision came after five new school board members won elections in November by running on pro-Native American platforms.
"The decisions never have popular support … It's Marxism and it's taken over the school boards."
"This movement was about erasing Native American culture and I wasn't about to stand for it," Jennifer Henkel, a mother of three children and one of the new school board members, told Fox News Digital previously.
The powerful group National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), based in Washington, D.C. has led the effort to erase Native American images in local communities around the nation. The organization is funded by benefactors such as George Soros' Open Society Foundations, along with taxpayer dollars.
The NCAI "has tracked the retirement of more than 200 unsanctioned Native 'themed' mascots since 2019, and has supported legislation banning the use of these mascots in multiple states," the group said in a statement last year to Fox News Digital.
The group is also largely responsible for the effort to force the NFL's franchise in Washington, D.C., to drop its traditional Redskins name and the familiar Native American face that appeared on the team's helmets.
Blackfoot Chief John Two Guns White Calf fought for Native American causes and counted President Calvin Coolidge among his sphere of influence.
"Widely consumed images of Native American stereotypes in commercial and educational environments slander, defame and vilify Native peoples," the NCAI claimed in a 2013 report that tilted public opinion against the Redskins and other Native American images.
The report, however, offered a dubious narrative. Among other omissions, the report's lengthy history of the Redskins failed to mention Blackfoot Chief John Two Guns White Calf — even though he served as the face of the franchise for 48 years.
He was one of the most influential Native Americans of the 20th century. He fought for Native American causes and counted President Calvin Coolidge among his sphere of influence.
His proud facade appeared on Redskins helmets from 1972 until he was canceled in 2020. The NCAI scrubbed his name from its history of the franchise.
Fox News Digital reached out to the NCAI for further comment.
Communities across the nation, however, are fighting to preserve their Chief White Calf Redskins logo.
Voters in Sandusky, Michigan recalled three school board members who voted to eliminate the Redskins. They've since elected three new school board members who ran on promises to reclaim the Redskins.
Rick Spiegel, an activist in Sandusky who is leading the effort to reclaim the Redskins, said 2,100 registered voters in the town responded to a mail-in survey, with 90% supporting the traditional name.
A survey at the high school revealed that 74% of students, and 53% of teachers, supported the Redskins.
Even so, the Sandusky High School teams are now known as the Wolves.
"They're trying to erase or eradicate Native American history," said Spiegel.
The Michigan communities of Camden, Pawpaw and Port Huron, he said, are fighting similar battles to preserve local traditions.
The Red Mesa (Arizona) High School Redskins installed a new football field last year with a Redskins logo splashed across the 50-yard line.
Students at Wellpinit (Washington) High School voted to keep the school's Redskins mascot in March 2023, rejecting calls to erase history and heritage by local Democrat leaders.
The student body is 87% Native American, according to the Department of Education.
Kingston (Oklahoma) High School is also a majority Native American school that embraces the Redskins.
"The people that I've talked to — they have a sense of pride about our name, and about our mascot being the Redskins," Kingston athletic director Taylor Wiebener told KXII.com in 2020.
Students and residents of Donna, Texas, and McCloud, Oklahoma, have repeatedly voiced support for their Redskins identity, despite constant pressure, according to Native American activist Andre Billeaudeaux.
Casuse, the Navajo alumna of Cedar City High School in Utah, claims her allegiance to the Redmen began when she arrived at the school from a Navajo reservation in New Mexico in the 1960s.
She was feeling homesick while attending her first home football game.
"It gave me a sense of honor … It was a proud feeling for me, a sense of my heritage."
"All of a sudden I heard a very strong native beat. The school song," she said. "It stopped me in my tracks. It was wonderful hearing that sound and the beautiful Native music."
She suddenly felt at home, she said, adding that she served as a member of the pep club throughout high school.
"It gave me a sense of honor. I was never embarrassed about it, never felt any tinge of prejudice. It was a proud feeling for me, a sense of my heritage."
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There is that old adage: "You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone."
Here we are fighting for American culture.
A culture that so many don't understand and, in so many cases, that is spat on and denigrated so frequently due to the lack of understanding.
Thanks Vic.
My pleasure.