fbpx
 

Saint Paul, MINN. — Hundreds gathered at Leif Erickson Park in downtown St. Paul on Thursday for a candlelight vigil honoring those who attended federal Indian Boarding Schools.

The event was hosted by the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS). Attendees engaged in ceremony and song and listened as boarding school survivors shared their experiences.

Never miss Indian Country’s biggest stories and breaking news. Sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. 

“We need to acknowledge that boarding schools has been a major contributor to the devastating things that have been happening to our communities,” Jim LaBelle, Sr. (Inupiaq) said during Thursday’s vigil. 

LaBelle is a boarding school survivor and was NABS’ first vice-president. 

“Our people are in prison, our children are in foster care in a White system, and addictions have been getting worse,” LaBelle said.

In June 2021, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland announced the Department of the Interior (DOI) would review the records of federal Indian boarding schools at the National Congress of American Indians Mid-Year Session. That same day, Haaland issued a secretarial order directing the DOI to prepare a report that details boarding school facilities and sites; the location of known and possible student burial sites located at or near school facilities; and the identities and Tribal affiliations of children interred at such locations.

Never miss Indian Country’s biggest stories and breaking news. Sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. 
 

Known widely as the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the effort comes after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves near the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. 

Haaland wrote in her June 22, 2021 memo: “…the purpose of Indian boarding schools was to culturally assimilate Indigenous children by forcibly relocating them from their families and communities to distant residential facilities where their American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian identities, languages, and beliefs were to be forcibly suppressed.”

“In most instances, Indigenous parents could not visit their children at these schools. Many students endured routine injury and abuse. Some perished and were interred in unmarked graves.”

“Children cried themselves to sleep, and some willed themselves to not be here anymore,” said NABS President Sandy Whitehawk during Thursday’s vigil. “But before they left, they were taught to pray and those prayers are being heard today.” 

Vigil organizers also urged participants to call their representatives to advocate for the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. Currently, both the House of Representatives and the Senate are reviewing a bill that will establish a truth and healing commission on Indian boarding schools. 

If passed, the Congressional Commission would locate known Indian boarding schools that the federal government funded and analyze their records within five years. In addition, the Commission would collect evidence of the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma in American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian communities.

Tell Us What You Think


More Stories Like This

WATCH: Native Bidaské with Podcast Co-hosts Crystal Hernandez and Shauna Humphreys
UP CLOSE: With Chuck Sams, First Native American to Lead the National Park Service
Native News Weekly (March 19, 2023): D.C. Briefs
Head Coach Kelvin Sampson (Lumbee) Leads Houston Cougars to NCAA Basketball Tournament Sweet 16
Learn Why the Choctaw Nation and Ireland Maintain Kindred Spirits

12 years of Native News

This month, we celebrate our 12th year of delivering Native News to readers throughout Indian Country and beyond. For the past dozen years, we’ve covered the most important news stories that are usually overlooked by other media. From the protests at Standing Rock and the rise of the American Indian Movement (AIM), to the ongoing epidemic of Murdered and Missing Indigenous People (MMIP) and the past-due reckoning related to assimilation, cultural genocide and Indian Boarding Schools.

Our news is free for everyone to read, but it is not free to produce. That’s why we’re asking you to make a donation this month to help support our efforts. Any contribution — big or small — helps. If you’re in a position to do so, we ask you to consider making a recurring donation of $12 per month to help us remain a force for change in Indian Country and to tell the stories that are so often ignored, erased or overlooked.

Donate to Native News Online today and support independent Indigenous journalism. Thank you. 

About The Author
Author: Darren ThompsonEmail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Darren Thompson (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe) is a staff reporter for Native News Online who is based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Thompson has reported on political unrest, tribal sovereignty, and Indigenous issues for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Indian Country Today, Native News Online, Powwows.com and Unicorn Riot. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Voice of America on various Indigenous issues in international conversation. He has a bachelor’s degree in Criminology & Law Studies from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.