As Thomas G. Smith writes in his new book, Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins, Redskins owner George Preston Marshall was quite happy running the last segregated team. "He loved being a holdout because he loved the attention," Smith told weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan. "His excuse for being the only holdout [was] the Redskins are the South's team and the South is segregated. So is the nation's capital, and this is my primary audience."
But the Redskins' history of racism predates their time in Washington. They were created as the Boston Braves, just like the original Beantown baseball team back in the days when a town's sports franchises often had the same name. In 1933, the team moved into Fenway Park. Marshall also hired a new coach that year, a member of the Sioux nation named Lone Star Dietz, "and to honor Dietz, so he said, he renamed the team Redskins," recalled Smith.
