Chatham-Kent IBL baseball club to immediately drop 'blackbirds' name

The newly minted Chatham-Kent Intercounty Baseball League (IBL) franchise is immediately dropping their recently announced “Blackbirds” name after learning the term held historical derogatory use.

The Chatham-Kent IBL club announced it would be dropping the name after announced the “Chatham-Kent Blackbirds” won the community-wide naming contest Friday.

“This decision was made following important community feedback surrounding the historical derogatory use of the term ‘blackbird’ and ‘blackbirding’ that may be harmful to some members of our community,” the club said in an official statement Monday.

Historically, the term “blackbirding” involves to the coercion of people through deception or kidnapping to work as slaves, or poorly paid labourers, the statement said.

“Whether there was intention or not, doesn't matter. The fact is the fact, that this was that historical terminology,” said vice president of communications Jay Smith. “It's derogatory. It's hurtful to some members of our community. And we want this club, this organization to be inclusive to all of our community. To be a team for this entire community. And obviously Chatham-Kent has a deep history specifically with the Black community.”

“This is important and this is something that can't be ignored. So we refuse to ignore it.”

The IBL club said plans are in place to change the team’s name to “better reflect the diverse cultural history of the community.”

“We're going to take a couple of days to just let this breathe,” said Smith. “Not have a quick knee jerk reaction on this next name. We want to make sure we get it right.”

Inter-County Baseball League (IBL) officials say there were over 600 submissions with more than 400 names suggested.

The five finalists on the list were revealed as North Stars, Legends, Wheat Kings, Field Kings and Blackbirds.

During the announcement Friday, team officials said the Blackbirds concept was adopted by the club in relation to the popularity of the birds throughout Chatham-Kent and following a number of “Crow” related entries in the online contest.

According to executive director and curator of the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society & Black Mecca Museum Sam Meredith, CK IBL officials have already reached out to arrange meetings and educational consultations.

“Personally, that was a term I hadn't ever come across before in the museum,” Meredith told CTV News. “But a simple Google search kind of brought up the whole page about it being putting people into slavery. And I think that connection to Chatham-Kent being part of the Underground Railroad and stuff, it's important that that name change come about.”

“You’ve got to keep educating yourself and looking at what terms mean historically and present day. And you know, sometimes you just have to make a change from that.”