00:00And across the United States, indigenous nations are transforming official calendar holidays into active platforms of resistance, cultural sovereignty, and
00:09historical reclamation.
00:10In Massachusetts, original stewards of the land gather not only to demand state and federal recognition, but to challenge centuries
00:17of colonial erasure.
00:19Our correspondent, Dan Albright, has the details.
00:24I'm here at the 6th Annual Indigenous Peoples' Day in Newton, Massachusetts, the largest Boston-area celebration of this holiday
00:32this year.
00:33With Massachusetts, Mashpee Wampanoag, Aquinnah Wampanoag, Passamanisco, Nipmuc Band, Narragansett, Passamaquoddy Tribes, as well as Taino, Mexico, and many other
00:45nations and tribes represented.
00:47And the mood here today is celebration.
00:57Organizers say events like this are meant to make indigenous presence visible, not as something confined to history, but as
01:05living nations and cultures.
01:07We are here to fight for the rights that the Great Spirit had given us, our indigenous rights, our aboriginal
01:13rights, if you will, to have a home and to be able to feed our families.
01:18That fight includes recognition.
01:21Indigenous organizers won their fight for Newton to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day in just 2020.
01:29But Massachusetts, a state named for the Massachusetts people, still observes Columbus Day as the legal holiday.
01:37Legislation to establish Indigenous Peoples' Day statewide was again sent to a study this year.
01:43The federal holiday also remains Columbus Day.
01:46As the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary, 375 years ago,
01:54the indigenous people of this land into cultural re-education, into what were called praying Indian towns.
02:01Then, 350 years ago, during the conflict commonly called King Philip's War, the deadliest war per capita in American history,
02:09colonial authorities again forced the indigenous people, praying towns, too, into internment on Deer Island in Boston Harbor,
02:18where most died from hunger and exposure.
02:21Grand Satchem Okua Wheaton used her speech to challenge the name and colonial account of that conflict.
02:27The only reason why the English called the War of 1675 to 1777 King Philip's War was to contrive an
02:37excuse and rationale to use it against all of the Cape Wampanoag tribes,
02:43to take control, to kill them, to also sell them into slavery, and to also take their land and resources.
02:52The celebration stretched across the weekend.
02:56On Saturday, indigenous organizers marched through downtown Boston under the banner from Turtle Island to Palestine,
03:03linking their struggles here using the indigenous name for the Americas to express solidarity for the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle.
03:13So today, Indigenous Peoples' Day is a celebration of their nations, their determination to not just survive, but heal and
03:22grow,
03:22and a call to carry forward the struggle for recognition and sovereignty.
03:27From Newton, Massachusetts, Dan Albright for Telesor.
