Greetings, relatives.
A lot of news out there. Thanks for stopping by ICT’s digital platform. Each day we do our best to gather the latest news for you.
Okay, here’s what you need to know today:
Ronnie Jo Horse is only the second generation in her Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne family to be able to fully participate in elections.
Her grandfather was born in 1910, before Native people were even considered American citizens. Her mother is the first generation who was actually able to cast a ballot.
Horse registered to vote just one month after she turned 18 in 2010. Horse is now 31.
“People think it’s a long time ago when it really wasn’t — it was our grandparents,” Horse, executive director of Western Native Voice in Montana, told ICT. “And (those) my mom’s age, they got to fully participate in the system … We can still see the effects to this day.”
Just 100 years ago, on June 2, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act, also known as the Snyder Act, making Indigenous people citizens of the United States. About half in the country were already considered citizens, but the new law made it official. READ MORE. — Pauly Denetclaw, ICT
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Lestina Saul-Merdassi still remembers the question she asked herself when her cousin went missing.
Will someone in power try to find him? Will anyone?
Her cousin, Merle Saul, went missing from Grand Island in 2015. He’s one of an estimated 4,200 unsolved cases of missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives nationally, as reported by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
“I feel like he was basically written off as a transient, written off because he suffered from alcohol-related issues,” said Saul-Merdassi, an Omaha resident and citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate Tribe, during a 2023 legislative hearing. “People did not take into consideration that he is a United States veteran, and he risked his life in the Vietnam War for this country.” READ MORE. — Flatwater Free Press
A federal investigation of the Rapid City Area School District practices in South Dakota revealed “disparities in access” to advanced learning programs and “persistent, and statistically significant, disparities in discipline for Native American students compared with white students.”
The findings “raise concerns regarding the district’s compliance with its nondiscrimination obligations” under Title VI of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
In response, the district on Wednesday, May 29, signed a voluntary resolution agreement with Office of Civil Rights that grants open-ended federal oversight of the district as it implements a 23-page plan to ensure its policies, procedures, and practices “do not discriminate against students on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”
The stark portrait of the school district painted by federal officials was not altogether revelatory. READ MORE. — Stewart Huntington, ICT
The Oglala Sioux Tribe will not be attending South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s Tribal Public Safety Crisis Summit on June 24 and is encouraging the other eight tribes to do the same, according to President Frank Star Comes Out.
“The tribes need to stay united on Noem’s false accusations that Mexican cartel members are operating on the Sioux Reservations and not attend her summit,” Star Comes Out said in a May 30 press release.
On May 28, Noem announced a June 24 Tribal Public Safety Crisis Summit in Pierre to communicate and work to solve high rates of drug addiction, violent crime and trafficking of women and children on tribal reservations throughout the country, including in South Dakota. READ MORE. — Amelia Schafer, ICT + Rapid City Journal
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On Monday’s ICT Newscast, a civil rights report in South Dakota reveals disparities for Native students. Part two of an interview with the CEO of Gila River Resorts and Casinos. And Joy Harjo reflects on challenges facing youth with wisdom of the elders.
Watch:
Dave Thompson, Oglala Lakota, was 11 when he heard a woman’s body was found under a cement bridge two miles outside of his hometown, Gordon, Nebraska. In 2022, Thompson first heard about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and remembered that woman lying in an unmarked grave in the Gordon Cemetery.
Nearly 54 years later, Thompson’s memory of that unnamed woman has brought advocates one step closer to giving her her name back.
“It’s always been on my mind,” Thompson said. “We go to the Gordon cemetery, we drive by her all the time. She had an unmarked grave, it was just a rock. … I started calling around the tribe but I didn’t hear from anyone until I called Amanda Takes War Bonnett.”
Takes War Bonnett, public education specialist for the Native Women’s Society of the Great Plains, was able to alert the Bureau of Indian Affairs and shed light on the case that had stuck with Thompson for more than five decades. READ MORE. — Amelia Schafer, ICT + Rapid City Journal
- Couple on Flathead Reservation receives Rocket Mortgage discrimination settlement: The mortgage lender and the company both deny the allegations of discrimination but agreed to pay an additional $30,000 towards programs to improve housing for Native Americans.
- Remember the Removal cyclists leave to retrace forced removal: This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first ride.
- Recycling isn’t easy. The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is doing it anyway: With federal dollars flowing, small tribes are trying to jumpstart their own recycling programs.
- Havasupai pack animals still in peril, say activists: Jurisdictional issues complicate efforts by federal authorities to police the treatment of pack animals.
- Tribal police officer among 2 killed by gunfire in Gila River: ‘Nothing cuts deeper than a life cut short,’ Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said.
- Minnesota high school opens first-of-its-kind smudging space for students.
- Dylan Waukazo selected to play in Atlanta Braves NAS baseball event.
- An industrial buildout on the southern tip of Texas is erasing the last traces of an ancient world that still hasn’t died.
We want your tips, but we also want your feedback. What should we be covering that we’re not? What are we getting wrong? Please let us know. dalton@ictnews.org.
