For more than one hundred years, thousands of Native American children were taken from their homes and sent to residential Indian schools in the United States and Canada, to forcibly assimilate them into white culture.
Indigenous advocate Jennifer Night Bird Miller describes cruelties they endured and what she hopes for as the U.S. moves toward understanding this painful past.
“The US citizens need to know and acknowledge that these atrocities have occurred and the people are still here. And in order for us to heal, we need acknowledgment.”
Plus -- Sandi Cianciulli and Mary Ann Robins from the Carlisle Indian School Project, located just 90 miles northwest of Baltimore, tell us how they hope to memorialize young lives lost.
Links:
Washington Post Op Ed by Deb Haaland
Carlisle Indian School Project
Map of locations of US Native American Boarding Schools
Home From School: The Children of Carlisle documentary
Secretary Haaland's plan for the Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation
Guardianvideo history of residential schools in Canada