FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 26, 2024
Rapid City, SD – Last night, NDN Collective held an action to uplift their demands to President Biden following his historic apology to Indigenous Peoples for the boarding school system developed and operated by the federal government for over 150 years.
The community gathered together after an emotional day for prayer, traditional singing, setting up tipis, and light projection action at the future permanent site of the Oceti Sakowin Community Academy— a culture-based school where Lakota, Dakota and Nakota children learn about their traditional culture and education from an Indigenous worldview.
Below is a photo from the event:
The group projected visuals conveying their demands to the president, which include:
- Passing the U.S. Truth & Healing Commission Bill to ensure continued funding and support for relatives who survived boarding schools;
- Granting immediate Executive Clemency for boarding school survivor Leonard Peltier, freeing him from his 50 year incarceration;
- Immediately investing in Indigenous language and cultural revitalization programs;
- Rescinding all medals of honor awarded to US soldiers for the massacre at Wounded Knee, in which 300 unarmed Lakota people – mostly women and children – were slaughtered;
- Instructing the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) to conduct a full-scale investigation into failure by the Tuba City Boarding School system to address egregious misconduct and support the nationwide reforms being demanded by parents and students to keep children safe at BIE run schools.
“Biden’s apology doesn’t wash away the deep, generational pain our people have carried,” said Sunny Red Bear, associate director of organizing at NDN Collective. “It’s not a conclusion – it’s the start of addressing centuries of violence, forced assimilation, and attempted erasure. The least the government can do now is act—by investing in our communities, passing legislation we need, and giving us the means to restore what they tried to destroy. Our survival is proof of our resilience. We deserve more than words—we deserve real, tangible justice and a future where our children can thrive.”
“Tonight, we took to the land and reminded the world that we are the children of survivors,” said Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of NDN Collective. “We prayed, cried, sang, let out our anger, and let our demands be known. We will never stop fighting for our future. We will honor our ancestors by holding this country accountable for what it has done to our people. The U.S. government tried to exterminate and erase us. We will continue to remind them they have failed at doing so, and the warrior spirit of our ancestors lives in all of us.”
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NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.