Here are the teams and colleges that have removed statues, chants amid social justice protests

There’s a reckoning currently happening across America.

Numerous monuments have been torn down or vandalized as people seek to disassociate themselves with contentious figures that appear to glorify the country’s history of racism and oppression. Some of the statues included that of Christopher Columbus in places like Miami and Boston as well as Confederate symbols in Houston, Indianapolis and Fort Myers.

This movement, sparked by death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody, has even spread to the sports world where some teams have elected to remove statues and ban chants with duplicitous origins. And it’s not just regional either.

Here’s a running list of monuments and chants that have disappeared.

Calvin Griffith statue, Minnesota Twins

Calvin Griffith, the former owner of the Twins, is credited with moving the franchise from the nation’s capital to Minnesota in 1961. The impetus behind said move, however, was rather insidious.

“I’ll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when we found out you only had 15,000 blacks here,” Griffith said in 1978, according to ESPN. “Black people don’t go to ballgames, but they’ll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it’ll scare you to death. We came here because you’ve got good, hardworking white people here.”

Griffith owned the team from 1961 until 1984. He died 15 years later at the age of 87. His statue, which stood outside Target Field in Minneapolis, was removed Friday.

Hey Reb! statue, UNLV

The Confederate roots of UNLV’s Hey Reb! led to the removal of its statue on Tuesday.

When the school split from University of Nevada, Reno in the mid-1950s, students created a cartoon wolf named Beauregard who dressed like a Confederate soldier, according to UNLV’s website. The thought was that the mascot of UNLV, which stood south of Reno, would rebel against the UNR’s Wolf Pack.

That mascot last until 1976 when students replaced the wolf with Hey Reb! which drew inspiration “from the Western trailblazers of the 1800s,” the school’s website says.

UNLV president Marta Meana’s discussions with a donor, as well as a Change.com petition, led to the decision to remove it from in front of the Tam Alumni Center.

Gator Bait chant, University of Florida

Look no further than a 1923 Time Magazine article for the reason the “gator bait” chant will no longer be heard at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The story, which, according to the Associated Press, details how “colored babies were being used for alligator bait” in Chipley sheds some light on the horrors Black Americans endured in the early 1900s.

“Infants are allowed to play in the shallow water while expert riflemen watch from concealment nearby,” the article said. “When a saurian [alligator] approaches this prey, he is shot by the riflemen.”

Florida president Kent Fuchs cited the chant’s “horrific historic racist imagery” as why it will be banned in a letter published Thursday. A story on ESPN’s The Undefeated provides further context about the history of Black babies and alligators.

George Preston Marshall statue, Washington football team

The former owner of the Washington football team, George Preston Marshall, was there from the franchise’s creation in 1932 until the day he died in 1969. Marshall moved the team from its former Boston to his hometown in Washington D.C. He also changed the team name from the Braves to the Redskins, a name that has its own contentious history.

But Marshall’s past wasn’t all innovation. He also resisted efforts to integrate his team: Washington became the last to do so in 1962 only after the federal government got involved. According to ESPN, the former owner, who was famous for having his marching band play “Dixie” during games, once said he would sign Black players when the Harlem Globetrotters signed white players.

Events DC, which oversees RFK Stadium where Washington played until 1996, removed Marshall’s statue from outside the venue on Friday.

Jerry Richardson statue, Carolina Panthers

The NFL slapped then Panthers owner Jerry Richardson with a $2.75 million fine over racial and sexual misconduct in 2018. Less than a year later, he sold the team.

Richardson’s statue was removed outside Bank of America Stadium on June 10 about concerns that it had become a target amid protests in Charlotte, North Carolina. Though it’s unclear whether the statue will return, sources told the Charlotte Observer that the removal is permanent.

Sports Illustrated first reported Richardson’s behavior in Dec. 2017. Former employers accused him of sexual harassment and using a racial epithet, all of which he tried to hide through large payoffs. This led to a league investigation into Richardson, who led the franchise from 1993 to 2018 and is credited with giving the Carolinas their first NFL team in 1995, and the subsequent multimillion dollar fine.

David Tepper bought the Panthers from a Richardson, now 83, in 2018.