Celebrations, protests mark Indigenous Peoples Day in U.S.

FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ.—Indigenous people across the United States marked Monday with celebrations of their heritage, education campaigns and a push for the Biden administration to make good on its word.

The federal holiday created decades ago to recognize Christopher Columbus’s sighting in 1492 of what came to be known as the Americas increasingly has been rebranded as Indigenous Peoples Day.

For Michaela Pavlat, cultural interpreter at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, the day is one of celebration, reflection and recognition that Indigenous communities are fighting for land rights, for the U.S. government to uphold treaties, and for visibility and understanding.

“As long as you’re on native land and stolen land, it’s Indigenous Peoples Day,” said Pavlat, who is Sault Ste. Marie Band of Chippewa Indians (Anishinaabe). “We have a lot of movement and a lot of issues we’re facing in our communities, and you can have that conversation every day.”

More than a dozen protesters linked arms and sat along the White House fence line Monday to call on the Biden administration to do more to combat climate change and ban fossil fuels.

Others cheered and chanted in support from across the street as police blocked off the area with yellow tape and arrested the seated protesters.

The Andrew Jackson statue at the centre of Lafayette Park was defaced with the words “Expect Us” — part of a rallying cry used by Indigenous people who have been fighting against fossil fuel pipelines. Jackson, a slave-owning president, forced Cherokees and many other Indigenous Americans on deadly marches out of their southern homelands.

“Indigenous people have been on the front lines of protecting the land, the people, and it’s time for the government and these huge systems to do more,” said Angel Charley, of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, who was among the protesters.

Indigenous groups also planned protests in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, N.M.

At the Boston Marathon, race organizers honoured 1936 and ’39 winner Ellison (Tarzan) Brown and three-time runnerup Patti Catalano Dillon, a member of the Mi’kmaq tribe. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo, said she ran for missing and slain Indigenous people and their families, the victims of the boarding school era and the “promise that our voices are being heard and will have a part in an equitable and just future in this new era.”

Others gathered for prayers, dances and other commemorations across the country.

On social media, people posted educational resources that included maps of Indigenous land, ways to support Indigenous communities, and recommendations for television shows and films that prominently feature Indigenous people, like “Reservation Dogs.”