Norton Speaks Along with American Indian Leaders on Washington Football Team Name Change, This Afternoon

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will speak today at a press conference for the Change the Mascot campaign in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing room, room 628 in the Senate Dirksen Office Building, around noon. Last year, Norton was one of the nine original cosponsors of H.R. 1278, the Non-Disparagement of Native American Persons or Peoples in Trademark Registration Act, which calls for the cancelation of existing trademark registrations containing the Washington football team name. The House bill helped alert the country that the Washington football team name is a racial slur. Norton also signed a letter to National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Roger Goodell, Washington football team sponsor FedEx, team owner Dan Snyder, and the 31 other NFL franchises, urging them to support a change to the Washington football team name. The Change the Mascot campaign, initiated by native tribes, is holding the press conference to continue to raise the profile of the issue by hearing from lawmakers, representatives of the Oneida Indian Nation, members of the National Congress of American Indians, and leaders of the Change the Mascot campaign.

"Congratulations to our native people for their victory in the first round of this fight," Norton said. "They already have achieved a historic victory with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in June. Its exhaustive fact-finding and reasoning make very unlikely the ruling will be overturned on appeal. The timidity of leadership shown by Roger Goodell is a major part of this continuing controversy. The NFL, which benefits from the Washington team's profits, is fully implicated in the racial slur found by the USPTO."

WHO:

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN)

Brian Cladoosby, President, National Congress of American Indians

Nancy Zirkin, Vice President, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Hilary Shelton, Senior Vice President, NAACP

WHEN: TODAY, September 16, 2014, Noon - 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 628

More information about Change the Mascot is available here: https://www.changethemascot.org/