The University of Southern California has decided to rename one of its most prominent buildings after Joseph Medicine Crow, a renowned Crow National war chief and university alumni,according to The Los Angeles Times.
Medicine Crow's name will adorn the USC Center for International and Public Affairs. He will replace Rufus B. vonKleinSmid, who held a leadership role in California's eugenics movement, in an effort to reconcile with a racist chapter in its history, according to The Times.
The university is planning a dedication ceremony next spring and will offer more scholarships to Native American students in the fall, the paper reported.
Medicine Crow is a revered figure among the Crow people and across Montana. He was the last tribal war chief of the Crow Nation and earned a master's degree in anthropology from USC in 1939. He later served in World War II and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 by former President Barack Obama.
A historian and author, Medicine Crow is best known for his writings about the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
In Billings, a middle school in the Heights neighborhood and a VA outpatient clinicare named after Medicine Crow, who died in 2016 at the age of 102.
