Seven months after announcing its intention to change its name, Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team has settled on a choice. Beginning in 2022, the club will be known as the Cleveland Guardians.

The team revealed its new name on Friday morning with a video narrated by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks. “Together we stand with all who understand what it means to be born and built from the land,” Hanks said in the video. “This is a city and a game we believe in. And together we are all Cleveland Guardians.”

The name was met with mixed reactions across the internet, but it unequivocally represents a step forward for the franchise, called the Indians since 1915. Last year, in the wake of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd, Cleveland ownership and leadership began to contemplate a change away from a name that has drawn criticism for its racist roots for years.

“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 a statement in December. “We also spoke to local civic leaders who represent diverse populations in our city and who highlighted the negative impact our team name has on our broader population and on under-represented groups across our community.”

Unlike the Washington Football Team, which abandoned its prior name in 2020, Cleveland did not adopt a temporary name for the 2021 season. (Washington will not announce a new name until 2022.)

“We are not going to take a half-step away from the Indians,” Dolan told the Associated Press after the initial announcement. “The new name, and I do not know what it is, will not be a name that has Native American themes or connotations to it.”

The name change comes after five decades of public demonstration against the team name and its former mascot, Chief Wahoo, a racist caricature of a Native American. (The team reduced the mascot to “secondary status” in 2014 and retired its image from use in 2019.) Since the 1970s, the team has faced multiple unsuccessful legal challenges to its name, and protesters have congregated at every Cleveland home opener since 1971. Even in 2020, during the pandemic-shortened season when games were played entirely without fans, protesters took up their posts.

“Cleveland’s announcement today that they have officially changed their team name to Guardians is a welcomed one,” said Crystal Echo Hawk, executive director and founder of Native American advocacy group IllumiNativ. “Cleveland’s leadership was the first to begin the process of not only eliminating harmful mascots and team names, but also proof that eliminating the use of Native American imagery in sports is possible. It is a major step towards righting the wrongs committed against Native peoples, and is one step towards justice. Both Cleveland and Washington are proof that it’s not a matter of if mascots can change, it’s when. How much longer will the Kansas City Chiefs, Atlanta Braves, and Chicago Blackhawks pretend that change isn’t inevitable? The NFL, MLB and NHL must urge these franchises to stand on the right side of history.”

Cleveland’s new name does have local resonance; four art deco sculptures called the Guardians of Traffic flank the Hope Memorial Bridge across the Cuyahoga River near Progressive Field. Cleveland also released several logo images on Friday, including a winged baseball emblazoned with a red G.

“There’s always been Cleveland,” Hanks said in the video, which depicts the statues. “That’s the best part of our name. And now it’s time to unite as one family, one community, to build the next era for this team and this city, to keep watch and guard what makes this game the greatest, to come together and welcome all who want to join us. We are loyal and proud and resilient. We protect what we’ve earned and always defend it. Together we stand with all who understand what it means to be born and built from the land.”