Indigenous Peoples Day is a movement of recognition for the havoc brought upon Native American communities by European colonization. The day is not an officially recognized holiday under U.S. Federal Law.
“We ignore the history of past experience and past strength in solidarity movements,” Joy SpearChief-Morris, a Black member of the Kainai Blood Tribe in Alberta, Canada, said. “There is the Red Power movement and the civil rights movement that went hand-in-hand with each other in the United States, and both groups supported each other.”
A 2024 YouGov survey found that 54 percent of U.S. adults approve of celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day, compared to the five percent who disapprove.
Despite only a slight majority in public approval, the movement has had major wins over the last four decades. A notable win came when U.S. President Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to formally commemorate the holiday with a presidential proclamation in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
“On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor the sovereignty, resilience, and immense contributions that Native Americans have made to the world, and we recommit to upholding our solemn trust and treaty responsibilities to Tribal Nations, strengthening our Nation-to-Nation ties,” President Joe Biden’s 2022 presidential proclamation read.
Native American youth started The Red Power movement in the 1960s, demanding self-determination. For seven years, from 1953 to 1964, the U.S. government terminated the recognition of more than 100 tribes and bands as sovereign dependent nations with the House Concurrent Resolution 108.
The movement toward holiday recognition gained significant traction the following decade, in 1977 when the United Nations had an International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, which proposed replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Native American activists of the Bay Area Indian Alliance and Indigenous delegates worldwide protested the 1992 “Quincentennial Jubilee” celebration of Columbus Day, which was celebrating 500 years since Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492.
The protest sparked national attention as activists on the opposite coast were successfully able to force a cancelation of the Columbus Day Parade in Washington, D.C.
The Bay Area Indian Alliance and Indigenous delegates worldwide coalition’s initiative convinced the Berkeley, California city council to declare October 12 as a “Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People” and 1992 as the “Year of Indigenous People.” The year of awareness extended to include incorporating Indigenous history in schools, libraries, and museum programs as well as drawing attention to the large-scale genocide of Native American peoples. But ultimately, to tell the stories of those survivors who fought bitterly to persevere against foreign diseases, warfare, massacres, and finally, forced assimilation.
“Won’t it be wonderful when Black, Native American and Jewish history and all US history is taught from one book,” said St. Louis born, Maya Angelou.
Despite the well-documented and widely known atrocities that occurred as a result of Columbus’ voyage, only Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin have officially recognized Indigenous People’s Day as of October 2024.
The Black and Indigenous Connection
In the colonial era [1607-1783], Black and Indigenous people shared a struggle against brutal colonization, slavery to an extent and later assimilation as a legally subjugated class, and therefore, in certain instances, sought solidarity with one another.
About 10% of those on the Trail of Tears [1830-1850] were Black people who were alongside the Native Americans when the U.S. government forced them out of their lands. Throughout the 18th century, free Black people and runaway slaves went to Florida and lived peacefully among the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which was primarily in South Florida. Allied with the local Native American populations, the Black population became known as Black Indians, Black Seminoles, and Seminole Maroons, or Seminole Freedmen.
The two intermarried occasionally, and some Black Seminoles adopted Native American customs. Seminoles exchanged culturally with the newly growing Southern Black community with staples like beans, corn, and squash combined with African cooking traditions such as yams, black-eyed peas, and early forms of deep frying. The combinations formed many dishes now considered soul food.
Both would eventually live in similar thatched-roof houses called chickees, dress alike, consume similar foods, work communally and share harvests. The Black Seminoles reportedly added traditional Seminole dances, like the “Stomp Dance,” to religious rituals.
Some Black figures with reported Native American ancestry include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, Frederick Douglas, Jimi Hendrix, James Earl Jones, Lena Horne, Michael Jackson and the Jackson family, Oprah Winfrey, James Brown, LL Cool J. and W. E. B. Du Bois.
St. Louis History
St. Louis had a Native American population estimated at around 20,000 when Missouri became a state in 1821. The Osage Tribe was generally forced out of St. Louis and Missouri in 1872 because of American settler encroachment. The Native American population in St. Louis was 616 according to the latest US Census Bureau in 2022.
Missouri experienced a steep decline in the Native population recently, dropping from 27,084 in 2019 to 17,559 in 2022 according US Census Bureau.
Despite the unfortunate decline in the St. Louis and Missouri Native American community, on a small light note Tower Grove Park recently partnered with an organization for the Osage Nation. The organization and Tower Grove Park are reviving a stream on the east end of the park that was significant to the Osage when the tribe lived in the region.
The partnership features Osage Nation’s interpretations of local nature and wildlife.
Coahoma Orchards, an educational farm site in north St. Louis is an urban orchard dedicated to the cross-cultural heritage of native and Black people.
Coahoma does genealogy, and regenerative farming models in addition to growing plums, black cherries, chokeberry, perennial herbs and flowers in the Greater Ville, Jeff Vanderlou, Wells-Goodfellow, and Baden neighborhoods.
No matter what y’all want, today is, and always will be Columbus Day.
It is a great stride in democracy