In the swing state of Arizona, President Biden formally apologized Friday for U.S. government-run Native American boarding schools, which sought to exterminate Indigenous culture by forcibly removing children from their families and placing them in institutions where their languages and customs were suppressed. “If the Democrats want the vote of Indian people, we want them to stand with us, not only on issues like the apology around boarding schools, but we also want them to stand with us in the solidarity that we have calling for a ceasefire in Palestine,” says Nick Tilsen, founder and CEO of the Indigenous-led NDN Collective. He says that while Biden’s apology could be the start of an “era of repair” between Indigenous peoples and the U.S. government, the apology must be followed by action. Among the NDN Collective’s demands is major investment in preserving Indigenous languages, the rescinding of military honors for U.S. soldiers who took part in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and clemency for imprisoned activist Leonard Peltier. “America’s longest-living Indigenous political prisoner, who’s incarcerated right now at the age of 80 years old in a maximum-security prison, is actually a boarding school survivor,” Tilsen says of Peltier.
