SQ IAC MENU: Provenance / Love Thy Sovereign Nation Neighbor / Allyship / Call To Action
If I have to think of one word I would send as a message to our youth, it would be the word "mëshatàm". In our language it means "I remember." ~ Chief Urie "Fox Sparrow" Ridgeway
WORSHIP SHARING: Queries
Worship sharing is a Quaker practice, open to everyone, of reflecting on questions and readings. Through this practice, we encounter each other in new ways. (extracts from FCNL)
- How do I embrace the call for social witnessing as an act of faithfulness? What sustains me in this work? What experiences can I share as we find and raise our collective voice?
- There are many challenges and beauties within the present moment. When thinking about them, what situations require me to be brave and constant? How are we collectively responding to those situations?
- In which ways can our action be and remain grounded in the transformative power of love? In which ways are we creating space to listen to the Spirit as we engage in our personal and social transformation?
- How are we re-creating our commitment to peace, justice, and earth restoration, and how are we supporting one another in that journey?
- Looking forward to the next few years, what are your aspirations for our FCNL community? How do we welcome difference and grow in the Spirit as we experience change? How can we best build a unified, loving and faithful community? What would help us to advocate even more successfully for a peaceful, loving and just society?
Faith is...acting on the knowings that we have, in full recognition that they may be misguided or incomplete. ~Jan Wood
AFFIRM & REAFFIRM
In 2011, Salem Quarter petitioned the State of NJ to Reaffirm the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation. The state failed to bring the concern out of committee for a vote by the end of session. Subsequently, relationship with the state continued through the NJ Commission on American Indian Affairs, seated by three Lenape tribes and one historic group. Years later, Cultural Heritage Partners brought suits in federal and state courts against New Jersey’s Attorney General for violations of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribe’s civil rights and due process when the state withdrew prior recognition of the tribe–securing the full restoration of recognition and a financial settlement. The suit was settled out of court by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. Read about the Cultural Heritage Partner’s civil rights litigation on behalf of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation against the Attorney General of New Jersey – SQ IAC member was an amicus brief signatory. Members of the SQ IAC accept invitation to the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribe’s Victory Celebration. Chief Gould writes a “Public Statement of Gratitude By the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation Upon Resolution of its Long-Standing Civil Rights Litigation Against the Attorney General of New Jersey, November 15, 2018.”
IAC MINUTES approved by Salem Quarter
Supporting the formation of a SQ Indian Affairs Committee, members named
Supporting the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation
Supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People
Supporting the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation’s NJ State Reaffirmation (subsequently an amicus brief signatory and NJ State Settlement)
Supporting the Establishment of a Federal Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the U.S. , now under this 118th Congress as proposed bill, S.1723.
EXAMINING TRUTHS & DECONSTRUCTING STEREOTYPES
DOCTRINES OF DISCOVERY
Overview by the UPSTANDER PROJECT
Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code Documentary by Sheldon Wolfchild and Steve Newcomb. This DVD is available for screenings; contact sacredwovenword@yahoo.com.
Parliament of the World’s Religions Official Statement Responding to the Vatican’s Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery
Revoke the Doctrine of Discovery (5 min YouTube) Indigenous rights activist Steve Newcomb discusses how the Doctrine of Discovery has enabled the subjugation of Native peoples for hundreds of years.
By 2012, the World Council of Churches (inclusive of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Salem Quarter Friends’ “umbrella” organization) denounced the “Doctrine of Discovery”.
I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America. ~Pope Francis, Bolivia, 2015
FRIENDS’ ROLES IN INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOLS
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report 2022, (Department of the Interior)
Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act (National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, NABS) – 118th CONGRESS – UPDATE: the proposed bill is now known as S.1723.
Resources for Self-Care and Trauma (NABS)
Quaker Statements on Indigenous Justice and Indian Boarding Schools (Friends Committee on National Legislation)
Quaker Indian Boarding Schools: Facing Our History and Ourselves (Friends Peace Teams-Toward Right Relations) and TRR recording & materials posted by Beacon Hill Friends House
Viewpoint: Quakers, Indian Boarding Schools, and Indigenous Justice Today, Friends Journal, by SQ congregant
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center Archives & Special Collections by Dickinson College. A digital format, a variety of resources that are physically preserved in various locations around the country; a major site of memory for many Native peoples, as well as a source of study for students and scholars around the globe.
INDIAN CHILD WELFARE
Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
National Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)
- Codify ICWA: The Lakota People’s Law Project view, post SCOTUS ruling, urging state codification of ICWA toward intented protections, with regional representatives’ contact information and resources.
Dawnland, a documentary of Indigenous child removal in the US through the nation’s first-ever government-endorsed Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Maine) – What is the relationship between taking the land and taking the children?
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center bringing together, in digital format, a variety of resources that are physically preserved in various locations around the country.
Carlisle Indian Boarding School Project giving voice to the legacy. Trauma. Triumph. Pain. Resilience. Loss. Survival.
Home from School: the Children of Carlisle, a PBS Independent Lens documentary. “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” This was the guiding principle that removed thousands of Native American children and placed them in Indian boarding schools.
STEWARDING THE “PERSONHOOD” OF ALL CREATION – Land and Water
Stewardship of Lenapewihituk, currently under examination – Denouncing the Transport of Liquified Nitrogen Gas (LNG) across Lenapewihituk, now known as the Delaware River, and land where Salem Quarter congregants call “home”. Background, resources, and letter of action provided by Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
Voluntary Reparations: Land Taxes and Land Back compilation examples
Children who learn the truth of the past will be better positioned to take preventative actions, form new relationships, and build a proud future together. ~Nemattanew Chief Roy (Crazy Horse) Johnson, Powhatan Renape Nation (Dec. 7, 1924 – Nov. 11, 2004) Chief, civil rights activist, Executive Director of the Coalition of Eastern Native Americans in Washington, D.C.
HARMFUL MASCOTRY
Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation FAQ post
Alliance of Colonial Era Tribes Statement
Coalition of Natives and Allies (CNA) – Advocacy within Pennsylvania
Fighting Indians documentary – showing the many forms of pushback against the Indigenous People of Maine and their words of experience which changed the use of harmful mascotry in ME. This DVD is available for screening; contact sacredwovenword@yahoo.com.
UNITED NATIONS
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
UPHOLDING GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
Native American Rights Fund (NARF)
National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)
Organization of American States (OAS) document INDIGENOUS AND TRIBAL PEOPLES’ RIGHTS OVER THEIR ANCESTRAL LANDS AND NATURAL RESOURCES Norms and Jurisprudence of the Inter‐American Human Rights System
MISCELLANEOUS
PYM News (Action UPDATE) contributed by SQ member and contact representative for First Contact Reconciliation.
Truth and Healing: A Report on “Quakers Seeking Right Relationship with Indigenous Peoples” Conference at Pendle Hill – May 3-6, 2018 By Rachel Yordy and Barbara Heather (Note: member of the SQ IAC was seated on the planning committee for both PH Truth and Healing Conferences, 2018 & 2020)
Finding Right Relations : Quakers, Native Americans, and Settler Colonialism,
by Marianne O. Nielsen & Barbara M. Heather, published 2022; Colonialism has the power to corrupt. This important new work argues that even the early Quakers, who had a belief system rooted in social justice, committed structural and cultural violence against their Indigenous neighbors.
Provenance / Love Thy Sovereign Nation Neighbor / Allyship / Call To Action
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