NESPA Winner: News story, 2023

The Cypress, Brookline High School, Brookline, MA

Efforts to reconcile with America’s bloody history of violence, oppression and appropriation towards Indigenous peoples are becoming more widespread. Here are three initiatives to change appropriated names, symbols and systems at local, state and national levels.

BHS Mascot

The high school has not always had the “Warrior” as their mascot and even such, several iterations of the “Warrior” have been used.

Until as late as 1984, sports teams used the “Sagamore Indian” as their mascot, which was often abbreviated as the “Indians.” It is unclear when the high school took on the mascot of “Sagamore Indians,” but the first use of Indigenous imagery in the BHS yearbook was in 1928. Most likely, the mascot came long after the existence of the newspaper “The Sagamore,” initially named in 1893.

Read the full story here.