First peoples
Hundreds gathered at OCU to mark OKC’s first celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day.
Emerging from the shadow cast by the Oklahoma City Council’s past refusal to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day, about 250 people gathered on Monday to celebrate the city’s first official observance of Native American culture.
Elected earlier this year, Mayor David Holt made the observance official two weeks ago by issuing a proclamation designating Oct. 8 as Indigenous Peoples Day. His act overcame resistance by the city council in 2015 and 2016 to advocates’ requests for an annual observance.
While a mayoral proclamation is only good for one year, Holt, a member of the Osage Nation and the city’s first mayor of Native American heritage, said it was not a onetime deal.
“I assure you,” he said, “for as long as I am mayor we will have an Indigenous Peoples Day in Oklahoma City.”
Holt read the proclamation aloud at a noontime assembly before Enoch Kelly Haney’s “Chickasaw Warrior” sculpture outside the University Center at Oklahoma City University.
In the course of two minutes, Holt was able to dispel much of the rancor formed around the council’s refusal to act in previous years.
The Rev. David Wilson, superintendent of the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference of the United Methodist Church and an Oklahoma City University trustee, recalled Indigenous Peoples Day advocates speaking “to no avail” in favor of the observance before the council.
Afterward, he said, there were tears and sadness. “I gathered them together, and we sat there in the circle of peace and had prayer,” Wilson said. “And we said someday this will come. We’ll be patient. As Native people, we understand that.”
Jasha Lyons Echo Hawk of Live Indigenous OK, the collective that organized efforts in previous years to get official recognition of an observance, said the city council failed to see how “it could better their immediate community.”
“This day is symbolic as those of us that are indigenous know every day is a reason to celebrate given the historical treatment of our communities,” she said.
She said official recognition of an annual observance is needed so that, whoever occupies the mayor’s office, “Indigenous Peoples Day will always be affirmed, and we will always be represented.”
In his proclamation, Holt wrote Oklahoma City, as the state’s “political, economic and cultural capital,” is significantly shaped by its indigenous heritage.
As a community, he said, Oklahoma City “is dedicated to opposing racism.”
He said the community supports equitable access and opportunity for indigenous people to achieve a high quality of life, employment, education, income and health care — and supports deeper respect for tribal sovereignty.
The city council considered motions to pass an Indigenous Peoples Day resolution two years in a row.
Competing proposals favored Aug. 9 as the day, the other on the second Monday in October.
Advocates favor the second Monday in October because of its official association elsewhere, but not in Oklahoma City, with Columbus Day.
The Aug. 9 date is derived from a United Nations observance.
Kevin Chissoe, a senior at OCU and president of the Native American Society student organization, said then-President Robert Henry established OCU’s Indigenous Peoples Day observance in 2015.
“Today is an absolutely wonderful day,” he said. “OCU does not stand alone anymore. We have all of Oklahoma City to stand with us.”