Sunday, July 11, 1999
Group forms to save Redskins name
BY CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ANDERSON TOWNSHIP — Anderson High School's much-debated Redskins nickname now sports its own support group.
Called Save Our Skins (SOS), the group formed to give residents of the Forest Hills School District an official voice in the fight over whether the Redskins name should stay or go.
“I've been speaking to a lot of Anderson Township residents and we're all frustrated by it,” said Greg Delev, one of the group's founders. “We're frustrated more with the idea that people from the outside are com ing in and telling us how to live our lives and telling us we're racist.”
A supply of pro-Redskins yard signs has been ordered, and SOS members are urging supporters to tie ribbons of orange and black — Anderson High's colors — around trees and car antennas.
The group — as of Saturday, listing eight founding members — rallied after a June 28 school board meeting. Supporters of the American Indian Movement (AIM) spoke to the board, decribing the Redskins name as racist and offensive and asking that it be dropped.
It was AIM's second appeal to the board since May. The board made no decision in June, saying it may set at its July 19 meeting a time line for addressing the issue.
The AIM request is part of a push to eliminate American Indian monikers from Ohio schools by 2003. Nationally, AIM is targeting high schools, colleges and professional sports teams.
Anderson High students have always used the Redskins name “as a source of pride and respect for the American Indian,” said Mary Way, an SOS member and teacher.
Mr. Delev said he's not convinced that AIM represents the sentiments of a majority of American Indians.
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