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Construction on a memorial to honor the nearly 50 documented children who died at a Rapid City Indian boarding school starts soon.
Officials say crews will finish the memorial by Native American Day this October.
South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s Lee Strubinger has more.
After World War II, the city of Rapid City, through a congressional authorization, annexed 1,200 acres of land of what’s called West Rapid.
The move displaced Natives living near the former Sioux Sanitorium.
Native Americans were then moved to what’s considered North Rapid.
A new memorial will pay homage to that displacement as well as honor 50 children believed to have died when the facility was a boarding school.
“The intention is to build empathy and understanding in our community.”
That’s Amy Sazue, Executive Director of the Remembering the Children Memorial.
“To help people understand their community members and neighbors a little bit better. To understand race relations in our community a little bit better. See some of the symptoms of historical trauma and understand those that are suffering from historical trauma a little bit better.”
The memorial will be built on tribal trust land belonging to the Rosebud, Oglala, and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes.
Once construction is complete, the next phase of the memorial will take shape, which is art installation.
Sazue, who is Lakota, says the memorial will look like a public art space.
“The spirit of different parts of the story have to be present, and there’s no better way to do that than through art. Everything on site, actually — there benches, there’s a little plaza where people enter, there’s a food shelter where people can have meals — everything is being designed by artists.”
The memorial will also feature a sculpture by Indigenous artists, who will work collaboratively with South Dakota sculptor Dale Lamphere.
The sculpture will likely be installed by Spring of 2025.
The Montana Supreme Court has ruled in favor of tribes and Native organizations in a Native vote case.
The court struck down some state laws that would have hindered the Native American vote, ruling the laws unconstitutional.
One measure would have ended Election Day registration and the other aimed to prohibit third-party ballot assistance, which Native voters on reservations rely on.
The decision affirms a 2022 ruling.
Native American Rights Fund staff attorney Jacqueline De León in a statement said the decision is a resounding win for tribes in Montana.
Western Native Voice Executive Director Ronnie Jo Horse was also pleased with the ruling.
In a statement, she said the court reinforces the principle of equitable access to voting services and the protection of the rights for all voters, especially those residing on reservations where voting barriers are much higher.
Plaintiffs Western Native Voice, Montana Native Vote, the Blackfeet Nation, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Fort Belknap Indian Community, and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe filed suit in 2021.
They’re represented by the Native American Rights Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Montana, and the Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic.
Courtesy Global Hemp Innovation Center
Oregon State University’s Global Hemp Innovation Center has received a $10 million federal grant to work with tribes to spur economic development.
The funding will assist 13 tribes in the western U.S. to develop manufacturing capabilities for materials and products made from hemp.
The project is also intended to create educational and workforce development opportunities for Native students for jobs in the emergent biobased economy.
Biobased manufacturing focuses on using renewable biological resources from land and sea to produce food, building materials, industrial products, and energy.
According to the Global Hemp Innovation Center, properties of hemp-derived materials have potential to replace those manufactured from oil, gas, and coal.
The project is funded by the USDA.
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