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GILA RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY — President Joe Biden delivered an historic apology Friday on behalf of the United States for the nation’s dark past with Indian boarding schools, which sought to wipe out Native people, culture and language.

Calling the federal boarding school policies “a sin on our soul,” Biden drew cheers, tears and at least one protester among the hundreds of the mostly Indigenous crowd gathered for the long-awaited announcement. READ MORE. — Mary Annette Pember, Shondiin Mayo, Mark Trahant, ICT

The American story is complicated and contradictory. And yet the words Friday from President Joe Biden will be clear and simple. It will be an apology for the federal government’s boarding school policy. That clarity – and reversal of what was done in the past – will take place at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona during an official presidential visit.

More than a century ago President Chester Arthur first visited a tribal nation (on horseback) as an official visit. That president was promoting a policy of assimilation – and the boarding schools were the instrument of cultural erasure. In a message to Congress he asked for a “liberal appropriation for the support of Indian schools, because of my confident belief that such a course is consistent with the wisest economy. … They are doubtless much more potent for good than the day schools upon the reservation, as the pupils are altogether separated from the surroundings of savage life, and brought into constant contact with civilization.” READ MORE. — Mark Trahant, ICT

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WASHINGTON — The National Endowment for the Humanities recognized four leaders in Indian Country. President Joe Biden presented 19 humanities medals to award recipients during a private reception at the White House on Monday, October 21. The ceremony also recognized 20 individuals with National Medals of Arts.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is a federal agency established in 1965 pursuant to the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act. Shelly C. Lowe, Navajo, serves as the chair. It was created to support scholarship and the arts at the federal level because “democracy demands wisdom,” according to its mission statement. The endowment has awarded this medal since 1997. READ MORE. — Kadin Mills, ICT

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RENO, Nev. (AP) — For the first time under President Joe Biden, a federal permit for a new lithium-boron mine has been approved for a Nevada project essential to his clean energy agenda, despite conservationists’ vows to sue over the plan they insist will drive an endangered wildflower to extinction.

Ioneer Ltd.’s mine will help expedite production of a key mineral in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles at the center of Biden’s push to cut greenhouse gas emissions, administration officials said Thursday in Reno. READ MORE. — Associated Press

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