Native American Heritage and Restoration Presentation Series

October 11 – Boarding Schools with Jerilyn DeCoteau

October 25 – Repatriation with Jordan Dresser

November 8 – Truth, Restoration, & Education Commission Report with Richard Williams

November 14 –

November 22 – "Fort Chambers" and"Just Neighbors" Mark Gerzon Book Signing and Discussion

"The Indigenous Boarding Schools and Multigenerational Trauma"

October 11 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Members of the Museum are free, $10 for non-members

Jerilyn DeCoteau, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, offers this slide presentation about the federal government's policy of family separation and forced assimilation of Native children and the ongoing impacts on her family and on Indian communities and Tribes today. Jerilyn is co-director of Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples, a program of Friends Peace Teams. She currently serves on the supreme courts of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and the Pueblo de San Ildefonso. She is past president of the board of directors of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition was created to develop and implement a national strategy that increases public awareness and cultivates healing for the profound trauma experienced by individuals, families, communities, American Indian and Alaska Native Nations resulting from the U.S. adoption and implementation of the Boarding School Policy of 1869.

“The heritage passed down to Native Americans is often too painful to name. Not reported in textbooks, and often not spoken of by boarding school survivors, is the chilling fact that for generations Native American children were forced to attend boarding schools far away from their homes for the purpose of destroying “all that is Indian in them,” writes Jerilyn in “Claiming Our Heritage from the Boarding School Experiment.”

“What Was Ours” film screening and talk-back about repatriation from Co-Producer Jordan Dresser

October 25 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Members of the Museum are free, $10 for non-members

Like millions of indigenous people, many Native American tribes do not control their own material history and culture. For the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes living on the isolated Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, new contact with lost artifacts risks opening old wounds but also offers the possibility for healing. What Was Ours is the story of how a young journalist and a teenage powwow princess, both of the Arapaho tribe, traveled together with a Shoshone elder in search of missing artifacts in the vast archives of Chicago’s Field Museum. There they discover a treasure trove of ancestral objects, setting them on a journey to recover what has been lost and build hope for the future.

Join Jordan for a talk-back after the film. Since its release Jordan has served a term as Chairman of the Northern Arapaho Tribe and has been the first Northern Arapaho named to a federal commission, Deb Haaland’s Commission for Violence Against Native Americans.

The “Truth, Restoration, & Education Commission Report” Presentation from Richard Williams

November 8 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Members of the Museum are free, $10 for non-members

These final reports present the comprehensive findings of the Truth, Restoration, and Education Commission (TREC) of Colorado, which, over the last two years, in collaboration with the People of the Sacred Land (PSL), has diligently examined the widely untold history of Colorado in order to uncover the causes of widespread land displacement and the genocide of Native peoples in the state. The TREC’s primary focus is on restoring the status of Tribal Nations in modern-day Colorado, and establishing an environment where Native communities in the state can grow and succeed. In the wake of irreparable harms, this work is dedicated to the restoration of Indigeneity, relationality, and wellness for the next seven generations.

Boulder Conversations with Extraordinary People – Charles Cambridge

November 14 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

$10 for members of the Museum, $15 for non-members

Charles Cambridge (PhD, University of Colorado) is a 4/4 enrolled member of the Navaho Tribe in the Southwest United States. He is Bitahnii (mother’s clan), born for Taneezahnii (father’s clan), his maternal grandfather is Todischiinii, and his paternal grandfather’s clan is Totsohnii.

Dr. Cambridge conceptualized the Solar Hogan in the 1960s. In 1989, he and Dennis Holloway, an Architect received international recognition for their experiments in appropriate technology and traditional architectural designs through the “Colorado Solar Hogan Project” at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Cambridge has conducted research on AIDS its spread among American Indian populations, and its impact upon the cultural traditions of American Indian Tribes. During the summer for more than thirty-five years, he has led teams of American and International volunteers to help traditional native people with physical and traditional chores in the western United States including Hawaii, Canada, and Belize. He was a founding member of the Association of Mutant Anthropologists and Engineers Without Borders. For several years, he served on the Finance Committee of the American Anthropological Association. The U.S. Federal Court considers Dr. Cambridge as an expert in Anthropology, Archaeology, American Indian Culture, American Indian Religion, and History. Dr. Cambridge is a professional practicing archaeologist and has served as an adjunct faculty in several institutions of higher learning. He has completed consultancies with Netflix’s TV series “Chambers,” and other entertainment outlets.

REGISTER HERE - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/boulder-conversations-with-extraordinary-people-tickets-948520850397?aff=oddtdtcreator

“Fort Chambers: A Call for Boulder to Reckon with our History and Build Right Relationships with Indigenous Peoples Today” and “Just Neighbors: This Land is Our Land. Or Is It?” Book Signing with Mark Gerzon

November 22 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Members of the Museum are free, $10 for non-members

“Just Neighbors” is a gripping novel that forces us to confront an inconvenient truth about this land we call "ours." This debut novel from veteran nonfiction author and mediator Mark Gerzon is a must-read for anyone who wants to explore how collective traumas from long ago can mysteriously touch our personal lives today.

Fort Chambers presentation: Throughout our country, people are re-assessing how we memorialize our history, especially in regard to racial injustice and conflict. This is an immediate challenge — and opportunity — for the people of Boulder. The City’s Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) department is considering how to protect and develop the site of Fort Chambers, one of the staging grounds for the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre where 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people were killed. Right Relationship Boulder is advocating for Cheyenne and Arapaho people to determine how this history should be memorialized at the Fort Chambers OSMP site.

Members of Right Relationship Boulder’s Land Working Group will narrate a 20-minute slide presentation, followed by Q&A and discussion. Please join us to learn about this largely untold chapter of our community’s history and to consider its implications for us today.

Host or Publisher Museum of Boulder