Biden apology a start: NDN Collective

As part of an English-only movement that flourishes even today in parts of the US there were some 332 institutions that indoctrinated Indigenous children in 29 states. Oklahoma had 78, Arizona was home to 59, New Mexico had 52 and there were 23 in occupied South Dakota. 59 were in the clutches of catholics. 

In 1948 Congress gave the land belonging to the Indian Boarding School in west Rapid City to the City, the School District, the South Dakota National Guard, various churches and the Native Community - except the Native Community never got theirs. 

Leonard Peltier attended the Flandreau Indian School in the late 1950s where my mom practice-taught in the mid 1960s and learned first hand how Indigenous Americans were made to write in English. 

In 2012 the Rapid City Journal refused to publish journalist Jim Kent's column on boarding schools.

In a letter dated 24 April, 2020 US Representative Deb Haaland (D- NM, 1st District) and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ, 3rd District) asked for a grant of clemency and the release of Prisoner of War Peltier, a tribal citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. In May, 2020 Peltier applied for a compassionate release because of the coronavirus outbreak but it was denied by the Trump Organization because Donald Trump detests American Indians. In November, 2020 Native Americans overwhelmingly turned out to vote for Joe Biden then Deb Haaland became Secretary of the Interior. 

NDN Collective has purchased a home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in anticipation of Leonard Peltier's release.

“Apologies must include meaningful action to repair the harm done – otherwise, they are just manipulative tools giving the semblance of care to distract from continued wrongdoing. Biden can and should make his apology real by:

Passing the U.S. Truth & Healing Commission Bill to ensure continued funding and support for the relatives who survived boarding schools;

Granting immediate Executive Clemency for boarding school survivor Leonard Peltier, freeing him from his 50 year incarceration;

Immediately investing in Indigenous language and cultural revitalization programs; Rescinding all medals of honor awarded to US soldiers for the massacre at Wounded Knee, in which 300 unarmed Lakota people – mostly women and children – were slaughtered;

Instructing the Bureau of Indian Education to conduct a full-scale investigation into failure by the Tuba City Boarding School system to address egregious misconduct and support the nationwide reforms being demanded by parents and students to keep children safe at BIE run schools." [NDN COLLECTIVE RESPONDS TO PRESIDENT BIDEN’S PLANNED APOLOGY FOR U.S. GOVERNMENT’S ROLE IN NATIVE BOARDING SCHOOLS]

In a related story, because the Roman church is being sued into bankruptcy, nuns in some orders are getting involved in activist capitalism to force social change.

Learn more at Cronkite News.

Although an apology is the least a US President can do for over 150 years of taking our children away from our lands and communities, we deserve more. Meaningful apologies require actionable steps toward accountability, healing, and repair. #NoApologyWithoutAction

— NDN Collective (@ndncollective) October 25, 2024