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The boarding school system was viewed as an alternative to killing all Indians - a goal which proved both illusory and too costly - and was supported by both the “civilizationists” and many “exterminationists.” Enforcing an English-only/Christian-only curriculum with corporal punishment, boarding schools immersed hostage-students in “Civilization” and isolated them from their people, cultures, languages, values, lands, waters, and ways, while using them to control their strong families at home. Generations of Suzan Shown Harjo’s family survived these schools, but some did not. Join Suzan to discuss the impact of these schools on those who attended them and on Native Peoples today.
Harjo is an advocate for Native Peoples’ treaty, human, and civil rights, who has helped recover more than one million acres of Native lands. She is also a poet, writer, lecturer, and curator.
She was news director of the American Indian Press Association, worked on national policy issues for the National Congress of American Indians, and for the Native American Rights Fund. A political appointee and legislative liaison in the Carter administration, she coordinated the review and reports of the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
Harjo is founding president of The Morning Star Institute, a national Native rights organization, and a founding trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian. She began work in the 1960s to protect sacred places, to free ancestral remains and cultural patrimony from collectors, and to end “Indian” stereotyping and mascotting in advertising, sports, and place names.
In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor.
Host Village: Northwest Neighbors Village
Limited to 100.
Registration is required by 11/29/23.
Zoom link will be sent to registrants following registration.