Claim: Walter "Blackie" Wetzel, a former leader of the Blackfeet Nation, designed the Indian head logo for the Washington D.C. "Redskins" NFL team.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Washington Redskins name controversy
text: logo for the NFL Braves was similar to the current logo, a Native American head in profile with braids and trailing feathers. The current logo, proposed by Walter Wetzel, a former Blackfeet tribal chairman and past president of the National Congress of American Indians, was introduced in 1972 and is modeled after the likeness on the Buffalo nickel. Members of the Blackfeet tribe express a range of opinions, from support to indifference to strong opposition to the Redskins name based upon their personal experiences. Advocates of changing the team's name say that stereotypes of Native Americans must be understood in

title: Cleveland Indians name and logo controversy
text: Redskins as disparaging to Native Americans. In 1996, the Cleveland Institute of Art opened an exhibit featuring the work of Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds, a half-Arapaho, half-Cheyenne associate professor of art at the University of Oklahoma. Among the pieces he designed for the exhibition was a 25-by-12 foot billboard featuring an image based upon Chief Wahoo and the text "Smile for Racism". Amidst controversy, the school initially announced that the piece would not be funded or shown. Heap of Birds announced his intent not to attend the opening, and alleged that the school was afraid of losing donations from

title: Washington Redskins name controversy
text: video on YouTube entitled "Redskins is a Powerful Name" in which several Native Americans express their support for the team. Of the fourteen individuals, five are members of the Chippewa Cree tribe on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in Montana and are associated with the Team Redskins Rodeo club. Two are Mike Wetzel and Don Wetzel, Jr. (Blackfeet), descendants of the logo designer, and the six others are members of various tribes and state that they are fans of the team and find nothing wrong with the name, or think it is positive. One of the individuals in the video

title: Chief Wahoo
text: team, including a small front-page visual box where his head would peek out to announce the outcome of the latest game. Journalist George Condon would write in 1972, "When the baseball club decided to adopt an Indian caricature as its official symbol, it hired an artist to draw a little guy who came very close to Reinert's creation; a blood brother, unquestionably." In 1947, Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck hired the J.F. Novak Company, designers of patches worn by the Cleveland police and fire departments, to create a new logo for his team. Seventeen-year-old draftsman Walter Goldbach, an employee of

title: William Henry Dietz
text: he is recognized as an "Indian athlete" by Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins, "Indian Country Today Media Network" ran a series of articles in 2004 exposing Dietz as a white man masquerading as an Indian. In 1988, the National Congress of American Indians attempted to meet and discuss the issue with the team's former owner, Jack Kent Cooke, but Cooke refused a meeting. Dietz played at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with teammate Jim Thorpe, under famed coach Pop Warner. George Preston Marshall, owner and founder of the Boston Braves, sought to rename the franchise

title: Washington Redskins
text: at that time who were Native American; and that in 1971 the then coach George Allen consulted with the Red Cloud Athletic Fund on the Pine Ridge reservation when designing the logo. Supporters also assert that a majority of Native Americans themselves are not offended, based upon a public opinion poll in 2004 in which 90% of those who identified as American Indians answered that they were "not bothered" by the name "Redskins" being used for the Washington football team. However, in a commentary published soon after that poll, fifteen Native American scholars collaborated on a critique that stated that

title: Native American mascot controversy
text: the Delaware. The team that moved to become the Washington Redskins in 1937 was originally also known as the Boston Braves since the football and baseball teams played at Braves Field. After moving to Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, the team name was changed to the Boston Redskins in 1933, using a "red" identifier while retaining the Braves "Indian Head" logo. While defenders of the Redskins often cite coach William Henry Dietz, who claimed Native American heritage, to justify the name; the use of Native American names and imagery by this NFL team began in 1932 before

title: Native American mascot controversy
text: skills rather than anything derogatory. Karl Swanson, then vice-president of the Washington Redskins professional football team, declared in the magazine "Sports Illustrated" that his team's name "symbolizes courage, dignity, and leadership", and that the "Redskins symbolize the greatness and strength of a grand people". However, many note that the behavior of fans at games is not respectful. Richard Lapchick, director emeritus of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, in an article: "Could you imagine people mocking African Americans in black face at a game? Yet go to a game where there is a team with an

title: Native American mascot controversy
text: which was highlighted in a meeting of the Black caucus of that organization in 2007. A group of sixty-one religious leaders in Washington, D.C. sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Redskin's owner Daniel Snyder stating their moral obligation to join the "Change the Mascot" movement due to the offensive and inappropriate nature of the name which causes pain whether or not that is intended. Members of the Indian Affairs Committee of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends approved a formal statement condemning the name of the Washington football team, stating that "the NFL has

title: Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation
text: a memorial to those lost to suicide. The Chippewa Cree Tribe of Montana accepted money from the foundation to build a playground, leaders stating that they do not care about the controversy. The Zuni Pueblo tribe sent notice to Native artists that representatives of the OAF would be visiting on August 11, 2014 to buy artwork, in particular anything that incorporated the team logo or colors. The director of the Zuni Museum and Heritage Center characterized the event as part of a "spin doctoring" campaign, and wondered why the purchases would not be made through the existing markets for Zuni

title: Native American mascot controversy
text: and Kansas City 'Chiefs', MLB's Cleveland 'Indians' and Atlanta 'Braves', and the NHL's Chicago Black Hawks, continue to profit from harmful stereotypes originated during a time when white superiority and segregation were commonplace." Several of the founders of the American Indian Movement, including Clyde Bellecourt, Vernon Bellecourt, Dennis Banks and Russel Means, were among the first to protest names and mascots such as the Washington Redskins and Chief Wahoo. Vernon Bellecourt also founded the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media (NCARSM) in 1989. Cornel Pewewardy (Comanche-Kiowa), Professor and Director of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University, cites

title: Cleveland Indians name and logo controversy
text: non-native teams. The NAACP has also opposed the use of Native American symbols by sports teams. Artist David Jakupca of the International Center for Environmental Arts (ICEA) is credited with designing the current Anti-Wahoo Logo in 1992. It gained international popular attention when it was exhibited by ICEA at the 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, Austria. Stanley Miller, the executive director of the NAACP's Cleveland branch, has lamented the lack of response to Chief Wahoo's continued use. In an interview, Miller said that if black Americans were depicted in an image akin to Chief Wahoo,

title: Modern history of American football
text: black race; he openly allowed (and promoted) Native Americans on his team, including his first head coach, Lone Star Dietz, widely believed to be a Native American at the time. The choice of Redskins as his team name in 1933 was in part to maintain the native connotations that came with the previous team's name, the "Boston Braves". Another reason for Marshall's anti-black sentiment was to curry favor in the Southern United States; Marshall's Redskins had a strong following in that part of the country, which he vigorously defended, and he stood up against the NFL's efforts to put expansion

title: Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation
text: of Utah , Gari Pikyavit Lafferty, has been removed from office by a majority vote of the tribal council for accepting personal gifts in exchange for her support of the OAF and the Redskins team name. Lafferty's subsequent appeal of her impeachment has been denied. Phil Gover, a member of the Paiute tribe and one of the petitioners in the case that cancelled the Redskins trademarks, states that the foundation is having a corrupting influence. In August, 2015, the Cheyenne River Sioux Council in South Dakota voted to return a $25,000 check issued to the Cheyenne River Rodeo Association on

title: Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation
text: mascot and logo." Upon learning that the OAF would be the title sponsor of a celebrity golf tournament in Arizona, two of the other sponsors withdrew their participation in protest. First was the National Indian Gaming Association, whose chairman, Ernest Stevens, said his organization finds the NFL team's name to be offensive and is skeptical about the motives of the foundation". Next was the Notah Begay III Foundation, its executive director Crystal Echo Hawk stating: "I find it underhanded and despicable that the Washington football team would co-opt this event. As soon as we found out about their involvement we

title: Cleveland Indians name and logo controversy
text: grounds as Roche. Baird says that the feather depicted in the logo is traditionally given to a warrior wounded in battle, and alleges that institutional racism prevents people from learning of this. Sherman Alexie has also criticized the Cleveland team's appropriation of items considered sacred. After comparing Chief Wahoo to Little Black Sambo in an interview with the "Salt Lake Tribune", Alexie added, "The feathers, paint and drums are part of our religion. More than just racist, those images are blasphemous." The Penobscot Indian Nation formally asked the Cleveland Indians to stop using the Chief Wahoo logo in 2000, unanimously

title: Native American mascot controversy
text: tells us more about the depicters than about the depicted." In the 1940s, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) created a campaign to eliminate negative stereotyping of Native American people in the media. Over time, the campaign began to focus on Indian names and mascots in sports. The NCAI maintains that teams with mascots such as the Braves and the Redskins perpetuate negative stereotypes of Native American people, and demean their native traditions and rituals: "Often citing a long held myth by non-Native people that "Indian" mascots "honor Native people," American sports businesses such as the NFL's Washington 'Redskins'

title: Washington Redskins name controversy
text: effect". Native Americans opposed to mascots point to the oversimplification of their culture by fans "playing Indian" with no understanding of the deeper meaning of feathers, face paint, chants, and dancing. Richard Lapchick, director emeritus of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, wrote: "Could you imagine people mocking African Americans in black face at a game? Yet go to a game where there is a team with an Indian name and you will see fans with war paint on their faces. Is this not the equivalent to black face?" The unofficial mascot of the Redskins team

title: Damon Wetzel
text: general manager of the Mansfield Braves, class D minor league team to the baseball Cleveland Indians. In the early 1940s he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Damon Wetzel Damon "Buzz" Wetzel (November 7, 1910 – October 15, 1985) was a fullback for Ohio State, the Chicago Bears and the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was also the first head coach of the Cleveland Rams when they played in the American Football League, then general manager of the Rams (1937–38) after they entered the National Football League. In 1938, after the Rams opened with three straight losses following a

title: Native American mascot controversy
text: the team. The Atlanta Braves remain the home of the tomahawk chop (although it began at Florida State University). The logo has changed through the years from an Indian in full headdress to an Indian with a Mohawk hairstyle and single feather (described as either laughing or shouting), then to the Braves name in script over a tomahawk. The mascot Chief Noc-A-Homa was replaced in 1986 by a baseball-headed "Homer the Brave", and in 2018 by "Blooper". Native American rights advocate Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee) says the Blackhawks have escaped the scrutiny given to other teams using