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:
When Melanie James, Diné, a tribal crisis counselor at the Native and Strong Lifeline, answered her first phone call for the line back in November, it was from a mother struggling to get help for her child who was dealing with suicidal ideation. In the past, the mother had reached out to the 988 lifeline, but had been disappointed with the lack of knowledge about tribal and culturally specific resources.
Native and Strong Lifeline exists to provide those resources.
“She was so grateful that I was Native American because she said in a way, there is still stigma about mental health and the struggles about mental health amongst Native American communities,” Melanie James said. “I feel that Native and Strong Lifeline is one of the stepping stones that will help break that barrier.” READ MORE.— Nika Bartoo-Smith, ICT + Underscore News
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Lisa J. Ellwood, a member of the interrelated Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware, Nanticoke Indian Tribe in Delaware and Nanticoke-Lenape Indian Tribal Nation in New Jersey, referred to as “The Original People of the Delaware Bay Region,” passed away on Thursday, May 11, 2023, after a battle with cancer in her country of residence, Scotland.
Most recently she was the press pool manager at ICT, formerly known as Indian Country Today. She served as a freelance correspondent for ICT when it was owned by Oneida Nation.
She formerly served as Western Energy News Digest editor for the Energy News Network and was also a consulting editor and features writer for Promota Magazine. Ellwood also had her work published in The Center for the Arts in Society, Carnegie-Mellon University with her short story titled, “The Keepers of the Land.” READ MORE.— Vincent Schilling, Native Viewpoint
First Lady Jill Biden will be visiting a rural regional hub community in western Alaska on Wednesday. U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, and Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland will accompany her to Bethel.
There, Biden will hold an event, “to highlight the Biden-Harris administration’s historic investments to expand broadband connectivity in Native American communities, including Alaska Native communities in Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta,” the White House said in a written statement. Other needs and priorities across rural Alaska will also be discussed.
Bethel, with a population of 6,325, is the largest community in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers region, which is the size of the state of Oregon and home to 48 predominantly Yup’ik villages. The town is 85 percent Native American.
Most of the region’s villages have limited to no broadband capacity. Some 30 lack running water and flush toilets. Residents suffer rates of invasive pneumococcal disease that are among the highest in the world. In the past week, several villages have been declared disaster areas due to flooding related to sudden melting of high snowpack. — Joaqlin Estus, ICT
A Ponca tribe chief whose landmark lawsuit in 1879 established that a Native American is a person under the law was honored Friday with the unveiling of a U.S. Postal Service stamp that features his portrait.
The release of the stamp of Chief Standing Bear comes 146 years after the Army forced him and about 700 other members of the Ponca tribe to leave their homeland in northeast Nebraska and walk 600 miles to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Chief Standing Bear was arrested and imprisoned in Fort Omaha when he and others tried to return. This prompted him to file a lawsuit that led to an 1879 ruling ordering his release and finding that a Native American is a person with a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“For so long people didn’t know his story or the Ponca story — our own trail of tears,” Candace Schmidt, chairwoman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska said. “We are finally able to tell his story of perseverance and how we as a tribe are resilient.” READ MORE. — Associated Press
As a citizen of the Quapaw Nation, Ahnili Johnson-Jennings has always seen Dartmouth College as the university for Native students.
Her father graduated from the school, founded in 1769 to educate Native Americans, and she had come to rely on its network of students, professors and administrators. But news that the Ivy League school in New Hampshire identified partial skeletal remains of 15 Native Americans in one of its collections has Johnson-Jennings and others reassessing that relationship.
“It’s hard to reconcile. It’s hard to see the college in this old way where they were taking Native remains and using them for their own benefit,” said Johnson-Jennings, a senior and co-president of Native Americans at Dartmouth.
The remains were used to teach a class as recently as last year, until an audit concluded they had been wrongly cataloged as not Native. Native students were briefed on the discovery in March. READ MORE. — Associated Press
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In the Tuesday edition of the ICT Newscast we hear from the NCAI’s Youth Commission and learn about an art exhibit that celebrates the critical roles played by Anishinaabe, Inuit, and pueblo women. Plus, ICT’s Joaqlin Estus shares her latest insights from Alaska.
Joe A. Garcia, a well-known Native leader from New Mexico and advocate for tribal sovereignty, has died at 70, his family confirmed Saturday.
A traditional funeral was already held following Garcia’s death Thursday, said family members. The cause of death was not made public.
Garcia was a former two-time president of the National Congress of American Indians. He previously served three terms as governor of the Ohkay Owingeh. Garcia was currently the tribe’s head councilman. READ MORE. — Associated Press
- Joe Biden plan would open leases to conservation: The proposal would allow conservationists and others to lease federally owned land to restore it, much the same way oil companies buy leases to drill and ranchers pay to graze cattle.
- Record number of Indigenous members elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Centuries-old organization honors influential leaders in a wide range of fields.
- Powering Indigenous energy (fast & fair): There are more than 200 projects that one study cited as ‘land grabbing’ and harmful to Indigenous peoples.
- Airline gets Alaska Native artist touch: The former Salmon Thirty Salmon gets an authentic Alaska redesign from Crystal Worl.
- ‘Historic day for Indigenous peoples’: Indigenous leaders from Canada meet with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace before his coronation.
- New series hits close to home for creator Jennifer Podemski.
- Sarah Deer on Feminist Jurisprudence in Tribal Courts.
- ‘Our matriarch’: B.C. lacrosse legend honoured ahead of North American Indigenous Games.
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.
