A Pennsylvania community reclaimed its local Indigenous history and a school's popular tribesman mascot last week, just a month after five new school committee members won elections and ran on pro-Native American platforms.
The Southern York County School District (SYCSD) school board voted 7-2 on Thursday to allow Susquehannock High School to bring back its traditional Warriors logo.
"This vote was the Lexington & Concord moment in the effort to defeat cancel culture," Native American activist and historian Andre Billeaudeuax told Fox News Digital, after lobbying on behalf of the traditional image that pays homage to the Indigenous Susquehannock people.
All seven votes in favor of the logo came from members who were elected since a previous board voted to remove the logo back in 2021.
"The SYCSD school board stands as a role model and blueprint for other communities fighting for their Native names and imagery," the North Dakota-based Native American Guardians Association (NAGA) said in a statement, after it presented its case last week at the board meeting.
Five of the newcomers were elected in November after the sudden removal of the popular image in 2021 — and an effort to rewrite the region’s Native American history — spurred community anger and action.
"This movement was about erasing Native American culture and I wasn’t about to stand for it," Jennifer Henkel, a mother of three children and one of the new school board members, told Fox News Digital.
She and the other four new school board members, including her husband, Nathan Henkel, had never before run for elected office, she said.
https://news.yahoo.com/lifestyle/newly-elected-school-board-pennsylvania-091517074.html
