S1723 is now on the Senate Floor
It's time to contact your senators to tell them to support The Truth & Healing Commission on U.S. Indian Boarding School Policies Act
This week, S1723 hit the Senate floor; now is the time to contact your senators and tell them to vote “yes” on The Truth & Healing Commission on the U.S. Indian Boarding School Policies Act.
You can contact your senators independently, or I have also set up this resist bot:
Multiple states are progressing in their research or beginning their process of assembling commissions to investigate the impact of Indian boarding schools.
Recent updates:
Colorado:
“History Colorado will begin its second wave of research into Native American boarding schools next month — this time with help from Indigenous people whose family members survived the horrifying experience.
The three-year project, funded with $1 million from the state legislature, will focus on consultation with Native American communities to foster healing and reconciliation.
“During the first round, they only had a year to do the research and write the report, which was a very narrow timeline,” said state Rep. Barbara McLachlan, co-sponsor of the laws that allocated funding to the research.
“A lot of the research, because of that short timeline, came from papers and reports by a white person involved in all of this,” she said. “With this new law, they’re hoping to talk with tribal members and second generation Native Americans to see how this has affected the next generation that is coming up.”
History Colorado plans to meet with leaders of Native American tribes and Indigenous community members, Alaska Natives and others living on reservations outside of Colorado to help create a plan to care for the people affected by federal boarding schools that existed statewide.”
Arizona:
“Arizona senators back bill to create commission on Indigenous boarding schools”
Minnesota:
“The discoveries in those records have revealed a range of experiences for the students and parents who were involved in Native American boarding schools — some positive, to be sure, but others darkly reflective of the tenor and racism of the time.
The Pipestone school records are the first the coalition has examined, though it hopes to review records for all 24 boarding schools that operated in Minnesota — as well as hundreds of others across the nation.”
Thank you to everyone who has already signed!