MOVING TOWARD REPAIR: BOARDING SCHOOLS AND LAND JUSTICE

The Indian Boarding School policy of the 19th and 20th centuries was a concerted effort by the federal government to assimilate Native people, reduce Native populations, and open up their land to white settlement. Catholics ran at least 87 of these schools, the impacts of which have been widely recognized, including by Pope Francis, as cultural genocide: loss of land, language, culture, and even life.

Join us in conversation with Maka Black Elk (Oglala Lakota), the Executive Director of Truth and Healing at Red Cloud Indian School, and Henry Greengrass (Ho-Chunk/Bad River Ojibwe), a descendant of survivors of St. Mary’s Catholic Indian boarding school in Odanah, WI. Maka and Henry will explore the connection between boarding school healing and land justice, and offer practical ways that religious communities might participate in repair.