Cross Keys High School changed its mascot to the Phoenixes from the Indians by a vote of the DeKalb County School Board on Monday.
That leaves 13 high schools in Georgia with Indians as a mascot. There are 25 other high schools with Native American-associated mascots with 14 being Warriors. In addition, there are seven high schools with Rebels as mascots. Such mascots and names have come under scrutiny in recent years as some believe them to be insensitive.
Cross Keys became the latest of a small number of schools to change their mascots or name to avoid racist ties or Native American stereotypes. The Atlanta School Board changed the name of Henry W. Grady High School to Midtown High School in 2020. Grady was formerly a managing editor of The Atlanta Constitution who critics say espoused racist views. In 2021, Turner County High School changed its mascot from the Rebels to the Titans.
In 2020, Social Circle High School received pressure to change from the Redskins but kept the mascot.
In professional sports, in the NFL the Washington franchise changed its name to the Commanders in 2022 after earlier dropping the Redskins name, and in MLB the Cleveland franchise changed its name to the Guardians from the Indians in 2021. The MLB’s Braves and the NFL’s Chiefs have faced pressure to change their names but have remained steadfast.
“We are so proud of our team’s name, and our expectation is that we will always be the Atlanta Braves,” Braves’ chairman Terry McGuirk told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2020.
There are now 103 different mascots for high schools in the state of Georgia.
In making the decision to change its mascot to the Phoenixes, the Cross Keys district said the school’s community voiced concerns that the mascot was an offensive stereotype and an “unacceptable name for Indigenous people” in a memo to the DeKalb School Board.
The following is a list of the number of Georgia high schools with the mascots that have come under scrutiny.
Warriors - 14 (Cherokee, Gordon Central, Grovetown, Jefferson County, Jenkins, KIPP Atlanta Collegiate, Lakeview-Ft. Oglethorpe, North Atlanta, North Cobb, Oconee County, Southwest Atlanta Christian, Walnut Grove, White County, Wilkinson County)
Indians - 13 (Armuchee, Charlton County, Chattooga, Dodge County, East Coweta, Irwin County, Lumpkin County, McEachern, Murray County, Seminole County, Stephens County, Towns County, Vidalia)
Rebels - 7 (Atkinson County, Berrien, Effingham County, Fannin County, Groves, Haralson County, Hephzibah)
Seminoles - 3 (Creekside, Salem, Westside-Macon)
Braves - 2 (Baldwin, Heard County)
Chiefs - 2 (McIntosh, Sequoyah)
Redskins - 2 (Bryan County, Social Circle)
Cherokees - 1 (Kendrick)
Battle Creek Warriors - 1 (Tattnall County)
Towns County Schools superintendent Darren Berrong said he hasn’t fielded a complaint about the school’s Indians mascot since he assumed his position in 2015.
”We view the representation of Indians as brave, honorable, caring, respectful, resilient and much more,” said Berrong, a graduate of Towns County who has worked for the school system for more than two decades. “These are characteristics that we want our students and staff to represent.”
Berrong said the school, located near the North Carolina border in the northeast corner of the state, uses ‘TC’ in logos and branding instead of previously used characters depicting Indigenous peoples.
From the school’s standpoint our symbol is ‘TC,’” he said.
In the 1970s, Brown High School of Atlanta changed mascots from the Rebels to Jaguars. Brown was named after Joseph E. Brown, Georgia’s Civil War governor. It started as an all-white segregated school in 1947 and finished as an essentially all-Black high school before becoming a middle school.
Also in the 70s, three other schools changed their mascot from Rebels: Crisp County to Cougars, Macon County to Bulldogs and Montgomery County to Eagles.
- Cassidy Alexander, Fletcher Page and Todd Holcomb contributed to this article.
