Indian children were forcefully taken from their families to what were called Indian Boarding, or Residential Schools. These schools were sometimes hundreds of miles away. There, attempts were made to erase their Indigenous culture and force them to adopt White culture. There was widespread emotional, sexual, and physical abuse. Thousands died.
Support Truth and Healing Commission
On June 22, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (SCIA) held an oversight hearing on the findings of volume one of the Interior Department’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Report. (FCNL) Following is information from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) about how we can support Senate…
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A crisis of Spirit
Yesterday I wrote, “for millennia, people lived in sustainable ways. Life was often a struggle. But people did not use more resources than what could be replenished. They lived sustainably. What has been different over the past several generations has been the wealthy and powerful asserting their dominance not only over people, but over Mother…
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Indigenous, Quaker Mutual Aid
We’re at the intersection of so many things we could once rely on and have no choice but to find different ways to move into the future. We’re bewildered by the collapse of so many things we took for granted. Such as our political, education, healthcare, and economic systems. Our communities, including family, neighborhoods, and…
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A reckoning on Native boarding schools is long overdue
A reckoning on Native boarding schools is long overdue is the title of a recent article by my friend Bridget Moix, General Secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). She writes of the sanitized version of the history of this country we white people were taught in school. This has been a deep concern…
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Native Americans, Quakers and Mutual Aid
The Department of the Interior has released the first volume of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Report. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland first announced the creation of the Initiative last June, with a primary goal of investigating the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of these schools. This report, and ongoing news of…
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To the future through the past
The consequences of two atrocities in the history of this country continue to impact us today. The institution of slavery, and the genocide of and land theft from Native Americans continue to tear our social fabric because we have not done what is necessary to acknowledge the truth and seek ways for healing. This book…
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Quakers and Religious Socialism 