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Indigenous Peoples Day

Seattle Marches For Indigenous People’s Day

Seattle, WA – Hundreds marched for Indigenous People’s Day on October 13, this year marking the city of Seattle’s first recognition of the holiday. Starting at the city’s Henry M. Jackson Federal Building where immigration hearings are held, drummers of all ages led marchers through the streets of downtown Seattle, ending at Pike Place’s Indian Park. Grief and pride resonated through the march, as ICE kidnappings, the genocide in Palestine, and missing and murdered indigenous peoples were mourned and honored through continued resistance.

Oil Pipeline Threatens Catastrophe For Tribes In Michigan – Again

This Indigenous Peoples Day, the approximately 2,700 Ojibwe tribal members of the Bay Mills Indian Community in northern Michigan are marking the holiday amid fear that their region could face another environmental catastrophe like the one that occurred in 2010, when Enbridge’s Line 6B oil pipeline burst and spilled over a million gallons of tar sands crude oil, contaminating the Kalamazoo River and over 40 miles in its watershed. Today, the community is afraid that an even more potentially devastating event is looming: a future rupture of another Enbridge relic, the antiquated 72-year-old Line 5 pipeline, which originates and ends in Canada but travels across Wisconsin and Michigan, and crucially, through the Great Lakes under the Straits of Mackinac.

Why It’s Still A Good Day To Be Indigenous

It’s a good day to be Indigenous. Yes, even now. Even after what we witnessed this past week when the White House issued a proclamation for Columbus Day and failed to acknowledge Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Even with the return of a presidential administration that has made no secret of its disdain for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. And even though white nationalists continue to grumble at the idea of honoring Indigenous peoples at all—yes, it is still a good day to be Indigenous. Being Indigenous doesn’t depend on who sits in the Oval Office. It doesn’t hinge on whether a president utters the words “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” or if federal websites decide to scrub Native achievements from their pages.

Boston Rally Demands: Indigenous Peoples Day Now!

Boston, Massachusetts - Nearly 200 Indigenous protesters and their allies gathered outside Park Street Station in Boston on Oct. 12 to demand that Massachusetts immediately designate the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day. An Indigenous-led coalition of United American Indians of New England (UAINE), the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB), Cultural Survival, the New Democracy Coalition, Workers World Party-Boston and Italian Americans for Indigenous Peoples Day organized the Oct. 12 action, which bolsters the longstanding effort to demolish the cult glorifying Christopher Columbus, whose lifework was characterized by conquest, slavery and genocide.

Why We Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day

On Monday, Americans will celebrate the millions of people who have lived on this land since time immemorial instead of a lone man who never stepped foot on North American soil. That’s because Americans — including Native Americans — will be celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day rather than Columbus Day. In October 2021, President Joe Biden issued the first-ever presidential proclamation declaring the second Monday in October Indigenous People’s Day to celebrate and honor the invaluable contributions and resilience of Native Americans. The proclamation was the culmination of a decades-long effort by Native Americans to get the United States to cast aside Columbus Day in favor of honoring Indigenous communities and their inherent stewardship over the land.

Boston Demands Indigenous Peoples Day!

On Oct. 7, over 200 Indigenous activists and their allies gathered on Boston Common to demand that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts abolish Columbus Day and immediately designate the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day. This action continued the Indigenous-led movement to end the racist cult glorifying Christopher Columbus, a Genoese mercenary backed by Spanish monarchs and mercantile investors. He commanded the 1492 voyage to the Caribbean that initiated the transatlantic slave trade and began the ongoing settler-colonial genocide of Indigenous peoples.

Thoughts On Cultural Appropriation

One conclusion that I can draw from this all this is that my goal of building a strong, localized, place-based community is not just economically intelligent, nor even an ecological necessity — it is the only path to a just system that will not allow for rubbishy things like holidays for colonizers and cultural theft. Living local is a moral imperative. I know many people don’t like that word. Morals are quite passé because we moderns are loathe to admit that we live in community with others — whether we want to or not — and morals are the limits we impose on the self so that we do not harm our communities.

On Indigenous Peoples Day, Unity And Justice In The Wake Of A Hate Crime

Albuquerque, NM –  Marking Indigenous Peoples Day, Indigenous groups and supporters are calling for unity and justice for Jacob Johns, an Indigenous activist from Spokane, WA, who was shot and gravely wounded by a domestic terrorist at a peaceful prayer ceremony on September 28, 2023, in Española, New Mexico.  “This is a hate crime,” said Johns’ attorney John Day. “It needs to be recognized and prosecuted as such. Jacob’s heroism in protecting the lives of innocent people, including children, is important in itself, but there’s an even larger principle at stake here: we cannot afford to minimize or normalize targeting lawful, peaceful assembly of people with violent crime because they belong to a different group.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day Act Reintroduced In Congress

The bicameral Indigenous Peoples’ Day Act to replace Columbus Day as a federal holiday and designate the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day has been reintroduced in Congress. The legislation was reintroduced by Representatives Sharice Davids (KS-03), Norma J. Torres (CA-35), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), and Suzan DelBene (WA-01), along with Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM). The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Act has garnered 56 cosponsors in the House of Representatives. “Our country has long failed to recognize and acknowledge its dark history of erasure and harm brought upon the first inhabitants of the Americas,” Norma Torres (CA-35) said.

Boston March October 7 To Demand: Indigenous Peoples Day Now!

United American Indians of New England (UAINE), the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) and other organizations have called for a march and rally on Oct. 7 to demand that the Massachusetts legislature forever replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. This decades-long struggle of Indigenous peoples in Massachusetts, where the Pilgrims carried out “first encounter” land thefts and genocide, aims to overturn centuries of entrenched racist mythology wrapped up in the triumphalist federal holiday known as Columbus Day.  The 2017 murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the hands of fascists, and the police lynching of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, sparked a national wave of actions targeting racist icons, including Christopher Columbus. 

Indigenous Trade Unionists Call For More Inclusion And Solidarity

More than 476 million people worldwide (6.2 per cent of humanity) belong to Indigenous peoples, most of whom live alongside the societies that colonised their ancient lands hundreds of years ago. In the 21st century, after a long journey during which they were not always able to survive colonial oppression without losing their identity, language or part of their culture, Indigenous peoples have won significant gains in various regions of the world but they continue to face challenges such as discrimination and limited opportunities, making it very difficult for them to enjoy fair labour market integration.

Response To Biden’s Proclamation On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2022

When reading your Proclamation regarding Indigenous Peoples, for a second there was a spark of hope that this time we might be free. Then we read on and cold water was poured on that spark of hope when you continued with words that refer only to the "Tribes" your government created in the Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934. It was also called the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) and means the "tribal governments" that Act created without our consent. This is a major Human Rights violation. However, as an elder in the family of nations trying to teach your young nation, the United States (US), the essence of Human Rights, we are sending you this letter. Remember, your colonizing government is only a little over 200 years old. We have a civilization that is more than ten-thousand years old and know a few things about Human Rights.

Forterra Staff Defy Bosses, Show Support For The Snoqualmie Tribe

We, the undersigned, are former staff members and leaders of Forterra who are writing to express our solidarity and support for the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, which has made public very serious allegations of misconduct by Forterra. It is clear from publicly available information that Forterra has, at minimum, behaved in an inappropriate, disrespectful, and misleading manner inconsistent with the organization’s stated value: We show respect for people, place, culture and each other. It appears that Forterra has mistreated a sovereign Tribal Nation on its own ancestral lands while claiming to act in its best interest. Beyond that, instead of approaching this embarrassing mistake with “accountability, humility and care”, it appears Forterra’s executive team has engaged in victim blaming, pointing to the Tribe’s “bad faith”.

Building An Indigenous Agenda To Decolonize The United States

Today is Indigenous People's Day, still celebrated by some as the violent colonizer Christopher Columbus Day. Clearing the FOG speaks with Jean-Luc Pierite of the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) and United American Indians of New England (UAINE) about the growing recognition of the trauma and murder of American Indian children who were sent to assimilation centers called residential schools across the US and Canada and how that theft of children's cultural heritage and identity continues today through the foster care system. A major Supreme Court case that could destroy the Indian Child Welfare Act is set to be heard in November. Pierite also discusses the campaign in Massachusetts to recognize Indigenous People's Day statewide, the Massachusetts Indigenous Legislative Agenda and the work being done in solidarity with indigenous peoples around the world and the Black Lives Matter movement to create a path to a better future.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day: A Call To Higher Consciousness

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a call to higher consciousness, and it is one that is not solely defined by human beings but emerges from the original instructions of what the Lakota people also call wotakuye (relations with all life). Lakota children are taught that the earth is their grandmother, and that they are participants in her story. She gives us life, shelter, food, warmth, joy, and many other gifts. In contrast, the settler-colonial was taught that Unci Maka (Grandmother Earth) was property and meant for exploitation and one’s capitalist ambitions. However, it is time for the settler colonial to divest from this concept, to listen to Indigenous voices, and invest in Unci Maka as a relative that deserves inherent respect, honor, and reverence.
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