Although the weather was cold and dreary, the passion of the speakers at the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Celebration on Monday, Oct. 14 at the Peace Garden Podium kept everyone engaged. The event, organized by Brookline’s Indigenous Peoples Celebration Committee (IPCC) featured speakers ranging from members of the local Indigenous community to leaders of local schools.
IPCC chair and Brookline resident of Cherokee lineage Felina Silver began the celebration with a land acknowledgment. This was followed by a Tsalagi Heart Chant which was led by Brookline residents Crystal and Aspen Johnson. There were three featured speakers at the celebration, following the theme “Indigenous Past, Present and Future.”
Kailey Bennet, Cherokee Nation citizen and member of the IPCC, spoke on Indigenous history in Brookline and touched on the challenges for Indigenous people to vote. Bennet ended the speech with hope for the next generations.
“Today is a celebration. We are still here. Our tribes are still sovereign. They are led by elected leaders with established constitutions. Our languages and our traditions are being restored and revitalized,” Bennet said. “I will be able to pass to my own children, as my grandma passed to me, the same lessons about what it means to be Cherokee. We are still here.”
The speeches continued with Asa Sevelius, principal of the Roland Hayes School, who spoke about “Indigenous Present” and the story of renaming the Heath School to Hayes. He said that the renaming committee considered Indigenous names in the process of renaming. They decided against these names but, in the process, they spoke to members of the IPCC.
“What we did learn along the way was that we were literally sitting on land that had been occupied by Indigenous people. The land was a home for people. The land was a burial ground for Indigenous people. The land was for farming,” Sevelius said. “It was a robust place where Indigenous people had raised their families, did their work and lived their lives for a long time.”
After learning in depth about the history of their land, the administration at the Roland Hayes School decided they wanted to provide recognition, so they created a land acknowledgment that can be found on the school’s website.
“The thing that made it so great for us was that we were actually able to do the research and understand specifically the impact that we are a legacy of,” Sevelius said. “I hope other schools will do that.”
Silver said that, generally, people think Indigenous peoples are not suffering anymore and therefore do not recognize the issues that these people still face.
“[Indigenous people] don’t have what people think they have. They are struggling,” Silver said. “Some of them don’t have fresh water to drink, they have to fight for the food they are getting, they cannot fish where they want to fish.”
A junior at The Roxbury Latin School and frequent attendee of the Indigenous Peoples Celebrations, Aspen Johnson said he believes this celebration is important, but so is recognizing native peoples all year long.
“It is important to acknowledge, throughout the year, how much impact native people have had within your land and community,” Johnson said. “Going out and looking for that more is also important, and not reserving yourself from it.”
Kristen Wyman, member of the Nipmuc tribe in Massachusetts and co-founder of Eastern Woodlands Rematriation, concluded the speeches with her message on “Indigenous Future.” She said she is inspired by young people doing important work around Indigenous people.
“I get so excited because there’s a world of possibilities. There is a lot of power in changing the trajectory in a really good way,” Wyman said. “My ask of you is to remember that and continue to be a change agent, continue to tell the story and continue to push back.”
