“There are literal black-and-white images that people have in their heads of what an Indian is supposed to look like,” he told me recently. Simon Moya-Smith, a writer of Oglala Lakota tribal lineage who organized the protest, remembers that some fans were surprised to see him there. fans about the grim irony of the event: A team whose name is a dictionary-defined slur against Indigenous people was playing on a holiday based on damaging myths about Native Americans.

That afternoon, a small group of Native American activists gathered outside FedEx Field, the Maryland arena where Washington plays, to educate D.C. But the 2017 game wasn’t notable just because the team, then known as the Redskins, actually won. The franchise had played- and lost-on the holiday many times before. Three years ago, the Washington Football Team hosted its first-ever Thanksgiving Day game.