The Skinbasket Weighs in on New Redskins Nicknames

[pbmax]

Its possible there was pressure on Pollin to change the name, but if there was I don't remember it. He did it himself after the killing of a friend.

In 1995, owner Abe Pollin announced he was changing the team's name because Bullets had acquired violent overtones that had made him increasingly uncomfortable over the years, particularly given the high homicide and crime rate in the early 1990s in Washington, D.C. The final straw was the assassination of his longtime friend, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.[2]

[hoosier]

Its possible there was pressure on Pollin to change the name, but if there was I don't remember it. He did it himself after the killing of a friend.

Yeah, I was glibly lumping the Bullets/Wizards and Redskins together under the same cause. I couldn't remember whether the Bullet name change process was purely internal or response to external pressure, but discomfort with the name in the context of DC urban violence certainly does ring a bell.