Give it a rest already.

WASHINGTON — The Oneida Indian Nation’s campaign against the Washington pro football club’s team name picked up new supporters this week when more than two dozen clergy in the Washington region committed to taking the fight to their pulpits.

“Black clergy have been the conscience of America,” Oneida Nation representative Ray Halbritter said to a gathering of roughly 40 people on folding chairs in the basement of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ. “This is not a fight we could do by ourselves, or should do by ourselves.”

The Rev. Graylan Hagler, senior minister at Plymouth, asked for a show of hands Wednesday (Oct. 23) to indicate which clergy members in attendance would be willing to preach against what he termed the “R word.” More than a dozen raised their hands. Hagler said that a different dozen committed to the cause at a clergy breakfast meeting Wednesday and that, all told, he has commitments from roughly 100 clergy members to talk to their congregations in coming weeks.

Clergy at the afternoon meeting came from a range of churches, including African Methodist Episcopal, Baptist and United Church of Christ, and from as far north as Baltimore and as far south as Fredericksburg, Va.

“Collectively, we’re speaking to thousands of people every week,” Hagler told them. He has been speaking out against the team name for more than 20 years.

Joan Middleton, one of Hagler’s congregants, concedes that his sermons equating the “R word” to the “N word” have changed her mind, slowly, over time. And yet, she says, she just can’t let go of her team’s totems. They mean too much to her.