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American Indians in Minnesota celebrate as Washington Redskins ditch their nickname

The Washington football team announced that it is scrapping its Redskins nickname, nearly three decades after the first major protest of the moniker and logo decried as racist during the 1992 Super Bowl in Minneapolis.

American Indian leaders and some of their longtime allies held a news conference on Monday afternoon at the American Indian Center in south Minneapolis to celebrate a victory many felt was long overdue.

“Black lives matter and Indian lives matter” said Clyde Bellecourt, a national leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who helped organize the 1992 Super Bowl march with his late brother Vernon Bellecourt, the first president of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media.