After persistent criticism, Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Cleveland team will finally drop its “Indians” name owing to its being offensive to Native Americans, the franchise said on Monday, but will continue to use it during the 2021 season. 

In a statement, the Cleveland team said they would start the process of “determining a new, non-Native American based name for the franchise” 105 years after adopting the name, citing a desire to unify its community “more fully.”

“Hearing firsthand the stories and experiences of Native American people, we gained a deep understanding of how tribal communities feel about the team name and the detrimental effects it has on them,” team owner Paul Dolan said in the statement.

The announcement comes amid a nationwide awakening over racial inequality in the United States that prompted the National Football League’s (NFL) Washington franchise to drop its 87-year-old”Redskins” team name in July.

“Today’s announcement represents a monumental step forward in Indian Country’s decades-long effort to educate America about what respect for tribal nations, cultures, and communities entails,” National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) President Fawn Sharp said in a statement.

However, unlike the Washington NFL team, which immediately discontinued the use of its previous name and adopted the temporary moniker “Washington Football Team” while it develops a new brand, Cleveland said it will continue using the “Indians” name until a new one is chalked out.

Meanwhile, the Oneida Indian Nation in New York, which led the Change the Mascot campaign against the Washington Football Team’s former nickname, called the Cleveland change a “commendable decision,” as per Reuters inputs.

“This is the culmination of decades of work,” Oneida Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said in a written statement. “Social science has made clear these names are harmful and Cleveland got out in front of it.”

Earlier, the team, which has won only two World Series championships since its founding, removed its “Chief Wahoo” logo from uniforms starting with the 2019 season. It retained other traditions such as referring to itself as “the Tribe.”

Stephanie Fryberg, a member of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington State and a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, said that team names and traditions that “romanticize” Native American lives are harmful, Reuters reported.

“When you romanticize us, you don’t take us seriously … it’s like seeing us through some Disney ‘Pocahontas’-type representation. We are real people,” said Fryberg, whose research shows that native mascots, in particular, are especially harmful to native children, leading to lower self-esteem.