For Cheyenne Woman, It Still Hurts to Hail the Home Team

Suzan Harjo's case against Pro-Football Inc. is in its 16th year. (2000 Photo By James A. Parcell -- The Washington Post)

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Harjo founded the Morningstar Institute in 1987. Through her advocacy, she has helped Native Americans recover hundreds of thousands of acres of land and numerous sacred sites. She is also a poet and columnist for Indian Country Today and served as a founding trustee for the National Museum of the American Indian.

When she began speaking out against negative stereotypes of Native Americans in the 1970s, there were more than 3,000 Native American sports mascots. Today, there are fewer than 1,000.

The Redskins are likely to be the last to go. But all has not been lost for Harjo.

In the 1980s, the football team gave the District thousands of large decals bearing the Indian head logo; the city in turn decorated residential trash cans with them. After Harjo filed the lawsuit and others began speaking out against the name, the city removed the decals.

"If anything, we got the Indians off the trash cans," Harjo said.

And there's one other thing: The team has not been to the Super Bowl since the suit was filed. We'll soon find out whether the curse lives on.

E-mail:milloyc@washpost.com

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