A Pennsylvania community last week brought back local Native American history and a popular tribal mascot for a school. It comes just a month after five new school commissioners won elections and ran on pro-Indigenous platforms.
The Southern York County School District (SYCSD) Board of Education voted 7-2 Thursday to allow Susquehannock High School to reinstate its traditional Warriors logo.
“This vote was a Lexington and Concord moment in the effort to break through cancel culture,” said Native American activist and historian Andre Billeaud-Axe. told FOX News Digital after lobbying.
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All seven votes in favor of the logo came from members elected since the last board meeting in 2021, when they voted to remove the logo.
The North Dakota-based Native American Guardian Association (NAGA) said in a statement after announcing its claims at a rally last week: “The SYCSD School Board joins others fighting for Native American names and images. He is an example and a blueprint for the community.” board of directors.
From left, Joe Wilson, Bill Hall, Jennifer Henkel, Jeremy Nash, and Nathan Henkel are all elected to the Southern York County (Pennsylvania) School District Board of Education in November 2023 and are pro-Native American Operated on the platform. They voted in January 2024 to restore Native American logos and mascots to local high schools. (Courtesy of Jennifer Henkel)
Five of the newcomers were elected in November after popular images were abruptly removed in 2021 and efforts to rewrite the region's Native American history sparked community outrage and action.
“This movement is about erasing Native American culture, and I had no intention of supporting that,” said Jennifer Henkel, a mother of three and one of the new school board members. told FOX News Digital.
“The SYCSD School Board serves as an example and blueprint for other communities fighting for their Indigenous name and image.”
She said she and the other four new school board members, including her husband, Nathan Henkel, had never run for office before.
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But their arrival is clearly not welcomed by everyone in the community.
Former school board member Deborah Kalina wrote in a recent guest editorial in the York Daily Record that “They entered their new positions with bravado to advance their own personal agendas; I didn't have the humility to learn on the job.”
The five people on the left have been elected to the Southern York County (Pennsylvania) School District Board of Education in November 2023. On the right is the Susquehannock High School Warriors mascot. (Courtesy of Jennifer Henkel)
“Cutting away the mascot is a tribute to the past, present and future,” Katie Eisenoch, a Native American mother and alumnus of the school, told the same local media outlet after last week's vote.
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Henkel is facing political challenges due to the negative impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures on local communities, as well as cancel culture efforts to rewrite local history to stir up public sentiment against the Warriors' image. He said he was moved by his actions.
If anything, this anger has galvanized community efforts to preserve local history.
Introducing Chief Leni Lenape Tammany, an American revered as a “patron saint” until his cancellation.
“Current research findings indicate that there is no evidence that Susquehannock Indians lived in or around the municipalities that make up the Southern York County School District,” the commission's Diversity Committee wrote in a 2021 study. mentioned in.
However, the diversity commission's report appears to contradict centuries of known local history. European explorers wrote about the Susquehannock people living along the Susquehanna River as early as 1608, but historians believe they had lived in the area for centuries.
Native American activist and historian Andre Billeaudeau is the author of the book How the Redskins Got Their Name. He has lobbied on behalf of traditional images honoring the Susquehannock Indian Nation. (Courtesy of Andre Billeaudeau)
The Susquehanna National Heritage Area website notes that “communities were located in Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, and York counties, among others” along the Susquehanna River, and multiple historical sources. Cited and reported.
The website also states that the indigenous people “lived in large fortified towns, the largest of which may have had a population of nearly 3,000 people.”
“This movement is about erasing Native American culture, and I had no intention of supporting that.”
The diversity report appears to rely heavily on information provided by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) to fuel opposition to the Susquehannock Warriors mascot. The powerful lobbying group, based in Washington, DC, is supported by taxpayer funds and left-wing activist groups.
It's the same group that led the effort to encourage the NFL's Washington, D.C. franchise (now the Commanders) to change its name from the Redskins, while also targeting the image of hundreds of other sports teams across the country.
Circa 1880s photo: Combs made from deer antlers by the Susquehannock Indians. (MPI/Getty Images)
NCAI “receives grants from left-wing foundations such as the Ford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and George Soros's Open Society Foundations,” InfluenceWatch.org reports.
NCAI, a major Native American rights organization, took a strong stance against the use of Native American imagery.
“Since 2019, NCAI has tracked the retirement of more than 200 unauthorized Native 'themed' mascots and has supported legislation in multiple states that would ban the use of these mascots,” the group said. He said in a statement to Fox News Digital in September 2023.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the group for comment regarding the Pennsylvania School District news.
A report issued by NCAI in 2010 included a long history of the Redskins franchise, but did not mention two influential Native Americans who influenced the organization's name and image. It wasn't.
On the left is Blackfoot Chief John Two Guns White Calf. He was the inspiration for the Washington Redskins logo (right), which represented the NFL franchise on the field from 1972 to 2020. The franchise's original logo, since its founding in 1932, drew inspiration from: Tammany, chief of the Lenni-Lenape tribe, is called “America's patron saint” by the Founding Fathers and the generation that fought in the American Revolution. (Getty Images)
One of them was King Tammany, chief of the Lenni-Lenape, who was known as the “patron saint of America'' for his role in inspiring the colonial forces during the American Revolution. Another was Blackfoot Chief John Two Guns White Calf, whose face was painted on the side of Redskins helmets for 48 years.
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“It took a lot of courage for the people of York County to stand up and fight back against this agenda, like David to Goliath. The difference they made is incredible,” Billeaudeau said.
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