• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
YoutbueFacebookTwitterinstagram Blog Shop Login DONATE

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

Working for Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation for Boarding School Survivors and Descendants

  • Education
    • US Indian Boarding School History
    • List of Indian Boarding Schools in the United States
    • Impact of Historical Trauma
    • Healing Voices Movement – Stories
    • The Blanket Exercise
    • Truth and Healing Curriculum
    • Resources
  • Advocacy
    • Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies
    • Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
    • UN Filing on Missing Children
    • Carlisle Repatriation
    • Resolutions and Petitions
  • Healing
    • Resources for Self-Care and Trauma
    • Healing Voices Movement
    • Tribal Consultations
    • Community Gatherings
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Job Postings
    • History
    • Board and Staff
    • Membership
    • Annual Reports
    • Partners
    • Announcements
    • In The News
    • Donate
  • Get Involved
    • Events
    • Donate
    • Child Removal Survey
    • Subscribe to e-News
    • For Survivors and Descendants
    • For Teachers
    • For Community Allies
  • Resource Database
You are here: Home / Announcements / NABS Supports Federal Indian Boarding School Investigation and Calls for a Congressional Truth Commission

NABS Supports Federal Indian Boarding School Investigation and Calls for a Congressional Truth Commission

June 25, 2021 By NABS

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) would like to express deep gratitude for the leadership of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, whose announcement this week of a Department of Interior Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative marks the first major federal investigation into the U.S. government’s Indian boarding school policy. NABS believes this investigation will provide critical resources to address the ongoing historical trauma of Indian boarding schools. Our organization has been pursuing truth, justice, and healing for boarding school survivors, descendants, and tribal communities.

Image of children's shoes placed on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery as a memorial to the 215 children whose remains were found at a residential school in Kamloops.
The recent discovery of children buried in unmarked graves in residential schools in Canada has prompted calls to action in both Canada and the United States.  Image Source: (Ben Nelms/CBC)

NABS continues to call for Congress to pass the “Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act” and is working closely with Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office to reintroduce the bill this summer. On Thursday, June 24, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, approved a resolution calling for a federal commission to build on the Department of Interior’s initiative. Both the Department of Interior’s initiative and the resolution from NCAI request that boarding school sites be examined to identify known and possible student burial sites and the number of children interred at these locations.

“This federal initiative comes at a critical time when the discovery of our lost children in unmarked graves in Kamloops, Saskatchewan and other parts of Canada, as well as the repatriation of our children from Carlisle Indian Boarding School, is revealing the deep grieving and unhealed wounds of the boarding school era’s impacts on our families and relatives,” said NABS’s CEO, Christine Diindiisi McCleave (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe).

NABS has identified 367 historically assimilative Indian boarding schools that operated in the U.S. between approximately 1870 until 1970. However, NABS has only been able to locate records from 38% of the boarding schools that we know of. Because the records have never been fully examined, it is still unknown how many Native American children attended, died, or went missing from Indian boarding schools. We believe that the time is now for truth and healing. We have a right to know what happened to the children who never returned home from Indian boarding schools.

Join the Coalition and stand with us in calling for truth and healing for boarding school survivors and descendants. 

Filed Under: Announcements

NABS

NABS

Footer

  • About Us
  • News
  • Membership
  • Get Involved
  • Healing Voices Blog

© National Native American
Boarding School Healing Coalition
2525 E. Franklin Ave., Ste. 120
Minneapolis, MN 55406
Phone: 612.354.7700

Contact Us

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

* indicates required

SEARCH OUR WEBSITE

SITE MAP  |  PRIVACY POLICY

Copyright © 2023 · Maker Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Healing Voices Volume 1
Curriculum Request