Mary Annette Pember

Harvard announces return of Native hair samples

WARNING: This story has disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the US. The National…

Native vote turned out in force

Mary Annette Pember ICT From "something else" to “Indigenous creatures,” Native voters hit the polls in high numbers once again. And as in the 2020 presidential election, they made a difference. During the 2020 presidential election, CNN infamously…

Supreme Court takes up the Indian Child Welfare Act

The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are inscribed above the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. The terse phrase powerfully underscores the conviction that the nation’s judiciary occupies a special plane of existence in which momentous…

Excavation at Red Cloud school finds no human remains

WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the U.S. In…

‘Desolate Country’: Abusive priests clustered at mission schools

WARNING: This story includes disturbing details about boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the U.S. The National Indian…

Excavation begins at Red Cloud school for possible remains

Mary Annette Pember ICT Excavation is underway in the basement of historic Drexel Hall at the Red Cloud Indian School where a worker reported seeing three small graves in the 1990s. So far, however, no obvious human remains had been found in the…

Buried Secrets: Red Cloud takes the lead in uncovering boarding school past

Stairs lead down to the basement of Drexel Hall on the campus of Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, where officials are set to begin excavation Monday, Oct. 17, 2022, to search for unmarked graves. Red Cloud is…

Judge orders ‘trespassing’ Enbridge to pay Bad River

Mary Annette Pember ICT A U.S. federal judge in Wisconsin has ordered Enbridge to pay still-to-be-determined financial compensation to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa for trespassing on tribal lands with its Line 5 oil pipeline. But in…

Wounded Knee land comes home at last

Mary Annette Pember ICT It was the last resolution of the day but it was a stunner. The Oglala Sioux tribal council voted in an historic decision Sept. 7 to purchase 40 acres of Wounded Knee land from Jeanette Czywczynski for $500,000 – a move that…

Red Cloud Indian School will dig for graves

WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the U.S. In…

‘Sometimes we hear the voices of children playing there’

WARNING: This story has disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the US. The National…

Pine Ridge council votes to ban missionary from tribal lands

Mary Annette Pember ICT A Christian missionary whose message condemns Lakota spirituality and religion recently hit a sort of reverse sweet spot of outrage among citizens on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In an unusual decision, the Oglala Lakota…

Indigenous peoples want sacred items returned from Catholic museums

Update: This story has been updated to include details about items repatriated by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. Mary Annette Pember ICT One of the Vatican museums’ least-visited collections of Indigenous artifacts is fast becoming…

‘Don’t be afraid to stand up,’ the legacy of Tim Giago

Jourdan Bennett-Begaye and Mary Annette Pember ICT Tim Giago showed no signs of ailment as editor emeritus in May 2022 at his Native Sun News Today office in Rapid City, South Dakota. Giago died Sunday morning, nearly two weeks after his 88th…

Papal Visit: Pressure mounts for residential school apology

WARNING: This story has disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the U.S. The National…

‘We all carry the trauma in our hearts’

WARNING: This story has disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the US. The National…

This Lakota grandma rocks

Mary Annette Pember ICT In addition to its people, the little town of Oglala on the Pine Ridge Reservation is also home to a large, diverse population of dogs. On this particular May day, it seems most of them have decided to chase my rental car,…

Native leaders push for boarding school commission

Mary Annette Pember ICT Sometimes there are moments in history that mark the beginning of a sea change in a society. Hearing Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on Wednesday may qualify as…

Six Indigenous people selected for prestigious award

Mary Annette Pember ICT The Bush Foundation announced the 2022 Bush Fellows in May. The 24 recipients of the prestigious award were chosen from a group of 468 applicants. Six of the winners are Indigenous. The Foundation chooses fellows from…

Lakota man shot and killed by police

Mary Annette Pember ICT RAPID CITY, South Dakota — During his lifetime, few people would have predicted that Barney Peoples would be shot to death by police. Mostly, Peoples presented a far greater threat to his own health and safety than to that of…