Native Americans
For white Christians, racial justice starts with telling the truth
By Robert P. Jones — July 28, 2020
(RNS) — Perhaps the biggest obstacle to white Christians’ full participation in the movement for racial equality is an unshakable commitment to our own innocence.
Changing the Washington NFL team’s name is something, but not enough
By Kaitlin Curtice — July 13, 2020
(RNS) — While this decision is a big one, it’s not enough to show that Indigenous peoples have a place in this nation and that we never deserved the genocide, hate and oppression we have faced.
Mark Charles and the need for ‘creating common memory’
By Jack Jenkins — September 11, 2019
WASHINGTON (RNS) — 'The difference is between explicit versus implicit: ‘Make America Great Again,’ or ‘America is already great.’ They both agree the past, the history, was great. It wasn't. It sucked,' Mark Charles said.
Why do the Covington Catholic kids get the benefit of the doubt?
By Laura Turner — January 25, 2019
(RNS) — The national conversation about the confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial should always have been how we treat Native Americans, older people, and the marginalized, not whether a white kid got a bad rap in the media.
Denominations repent for Native American land grabs
By Emily McFarlan Miller — August 22, 2018
(RNS) — Several Protestant denominations have repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, the idea laid out in a series of 15th-century papal bulls that justified appropriating native land. But what are they doing now to act on that?
Why Native Americans struggle to protect their sacred places
By The Conversation — August 14, 2018
(The Conversation) — Despite the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, passed by the US Congress 40 years ago, Native Americans still struggle to protect public lands where they practice their religions.
How the Mormon church’s past shapes its position on immigration today
By Matthew Bowman — July 26, 2018
(The Conversation) — Each July on Pioneer Day, Utahans revisit the story of the Mormon settlement of the Salt Lake Valley, an event that still has profound implications for how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints thinks about issues from immigration to the Bears Ears National Monument.
Bears Ears National Monument, sacred to native tribes, faces a challenge to its status
By Lauren Markoe — March 10, 2017
(RNS) Could Donald Trump become the first president to rescind a national monument?
Sacred sites violated
By Martin E. Marty — February 16, 2017
What if the Sioux Nation decided to build a pipeline through Arlington Cemetery?
Pope appears to back native tribes in Dakota pipeline conflict
By Yonat Shimron — February 15, 2017
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) While he did not name the pipeline, he used clear language applicable to the conflict, saying development had to be reconciled with "the protection of the particular characteristics of indigenous peoples and their territories."
California first state to ban ‘Redskins’ name for public school teams, mascots
By USA Today — October 12, 2015
The measure goes into effect, Jan. 1, 2017; it affects four schools still using the "R-word." They will be allowed to phase out materials such as uniforms because of cost concerns.
Native Americans want name change for Wyoming’s Devils Tower
By Reuters — September 23, 2015
(Reuters) Chief Arvol Looking Horse, spiritual leader of the Great Sioux Nation, said the name is offensive and suggests that Indian religious rituals practiced for centuries in the Black Hills were forms of devil worship.
United Church of Christ to boycott Washington Redskins
By Cathy Lynn Grossman — June 29, 2015
(RNS) The progressive denomination wants the Washington Redskins to drop its controversial name and mascot.
New theory connects a Native American prophet with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
By Jana Riess — February 5, 2015
Peter Manseau's new book suggests that Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon may have been influenced by a Seneca religious prophet who died 200 years ago.
Some see Junipero Serra, Pope Francis’ next American saint, as less than holy
By David Gibson — February 2, 2015
(RNS) Some of Junipero Serra’s sharpest critics say he was part of an imperial conquest that beat and enslaved Native Americans, raped their women, and destroyed their culture.