In divisive vote, Wakefield residents back keeping schoolâs Native American logo
By Matt Stout Globe Staff,Updated April 28, 2021, 6:39 p.m.
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The Great Divide is an investigative series that explores educational inequality in Boston and statewide.
In the latest flashpoint within a far wider debate,
Wakefield residents on Tuesday voted to
keep the local high schoolâs Native American-themed logo by an 11-point margin, offering a nonbinding but public rebuke of the School Committeeâs decision weeks earlier to eliminate the decades-old âWarriorâ imagery.
Voters backed keeping the Native American mascot, 2,911 to 2,337, according to the townâs unofficial results. The âyesâ votes accounted for more than 55 percent of the nearly 5,250 residents who cast a vote for the nonbinding ballot question â a substantial turnout in the 27,000-person town, where closer to
WAKEFIELD, Mass. (AP) â Residents of a Boston suburb have voted to keep the high school’s Native American mascot and logo.
Wakefield voters on Tuesday supported keeping the school’s Warrior mascot and the accompanying image of a man wearing a feathered head dress by a 2,911 to 2,337 vote, according to the town’s unofficial results.
The nonbinding ballot question had sharply divided the town of some 27,000 residents north of Boston.
Some viewed the mascot as a source of pride while others deemed it racist and derogatory, The Boston Globe reported. Native American groups also urged the town to retire the mascot, as other Massachusetts communities have done.
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One Massachusetts town is putting its Native American logo to a vote. Residents say the debate is tearing the town apart.
By Matt Stout Globe Staff,Updated April 11, 2021, 1 hour ago
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Nicole Calabrese, who chairs a ballot committee that supports eliminating Native American imagery from Wakefield s school logo, near a Wakefield Memorial High School scoreboard that displays the logo.Suzanne Krieter/Globe staff
WAKEFIELD â The candidates argued over how to pay for a new school and the best ways to address the prolonged street closure on Broadway. As far as town council debates go, the virtual event here could have played out in hundreds of towns across Massachusetts.