by Shondiin Silversmith, Arizona Mirror
October 24, 2024
For the first time in history, a sitting U.S. president is set to apologize to Indigenous communities for the role the federal government played in the atrocities Indigenous children faced in the federal Native American Boarding School system.
The apology, which President Joe Biden will deliver Friday when he speaks at the Gila River Crossing School on the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix, comes three years after Interior Secretary Deb Haaland launched the first-ever investigation into Native American Boarding Schools.
The final boarding school report provided eight recommendations from the Department of Indian Affairs for the federal government that would support a path to healing for tribal communities.
At the top of that list was a call for the United States to acknowledge and apologize for its role in the federal Indian boarding school policies that have harmed — and continue to harm — Indigenous peoples across the country.
“The president is taking that to heart, and he plans on making an apology to Indian Country for the boarding school era,” Haaland said in an Oct. 23 interview with the Arizona Mirror.
