Connect land acknowledgement to action, Native leaders urge

"We are on stolen land" reads a protest sign.

"… Hennepin County acknowledges that the magnificent land and vibrant waterways from which our institutions benefit, are located upon the cultural, spiritual, and indigenous homeland of the Dakota Oyate (Dakota Nation)," says an acknowledgement read at the start of County Board meetings.

And on the Guthrie Theater's website: "... we gather on the traditional land of the Dakota People and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations, including the Ojibwe and other Indigenous nations."

Many public events now begin with land acknowledgments — statements written or spoken before everything from artistic performances to county meetings. The statements, which have grown in popularity around the country, aim to recognize the treaty rights that mark Indigenous people as the historical stewards of the land. In Minnesota, at least 150 have been written by churches, local governments and Rotary Clubs.

As land acknowledgements continue to evolve and organizations grapple with the best way to write them, some Native leaders urge connecting them to action.

The nonprofit Native Governance Center, which works with Native nations to strengthen their sovereignty, began hearing more and more about land acknowledgements several years ago, said Wayne Ducheneaux, who recently stepped down from his post as longtime executive director. Their staff researched how organizations and nonprofits in other countries used them, including in New Zealand, where few meetings begin without them.

They held an informational session on the practice on Indigenous Peoples Day in 2019. Immediately afterward, they were inundated with hundreds of requests for instruction on how to write one, from major corporations to grade school teachers, Ducheneaux said.

Their guide encourages those looking to undergo the process to begin by looking inward — "if you're delivering a land acknowledgment out of guilt or because everyone else is doing it, more self-reflection is in order," the guide instructs.

The guide says "you shouldn't expect Indigenous people to do this work for you," he said. "It's something that is incumbent upon non-Native folks to take on, the some people say burden, I say the honor and privilege, to do this research and learn about your Indigenous neighbors."

Creating action steps is the most crucial best practice to land acknowledgements, he said. Do you plan to make a donation to a Native-led charity, to attend a protest or commit to learning about land return? the Native Government guide asks.

Then be prepared to take on the work, the guide advises.

"Our work after that event and our initial guide has been really trying to help focus on the steps you take to get in relationship with Indian Country, versus just putting out a statement so that you can check a box," Ducheneaux said.

In North America, the practice became popular in Canada with the publication of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's 2015 government-led report that created a historical record of the country's residential schools system, known as boarding schools in the U.S., said Jacob Jurss, a history professor at Century College in White Bear Lake.

"Out of that, institutions in Canada started to acknowledge Indigenous land," Jurss said. "I think a lot of university institutions started seeing this, and thinking, 'Oh, well, are we doing anything in our communities here in the United States?' "

The Dakota Access Pipeline protests during the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations were the largest contemporary protest gatherings of Indigenous people over one issue, Jurss said. With Indigenous people at the forefront, allies were looking for a way to support, he said.

"They become more politicized and they become more corporatized. So it becomes a way of individuals to signal, 'Oh, yes, we're trying to think about Indigenous peoples' without actually having to do anything," Jurss said.

Cris Stainbrook, executive director of the Minnesota-based Indian Land Tenure Foundation, began seeing the statements around the same time. At first the foundation, which works to purchase and return previously taken land to Native Americans, stayed away from them completely.

The Hopeful Earthkeepers, a group of Minnesota United Methodist Church members working on environmental justice projects, spent two years meeting and developing a 47-page curriculum for Methodist churches or conferences that want statements.

"One of our initial efforts was to connect with our Native American partners in this. And they said, 'Well, it's white people's job to do this [but] we're glad you're doing it.' … That was a real key component of our approach," said Bill Konrardy, a member of the group.

Their guide materials include informational documentaries, reflective prayers on decolonization and discussion questions meant to investigate how one's family came to reside on the land.

A major piece of the process was reckoning with whiteness and why the church thought it was OK to take part in genocide and separate children from their families, the Rev. Debra Collum said.

"Part of our theology as Methodists is that we are moving on towards holiness. How do we live as holy people on land that's stolen? How do we do that with any kind of integrity," Collum said.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis made headlines in January for a $250,000 donation to the Indian Land Tenure Foundation. The church read their acknowledgement and asked Stainbrook what he thought of it, he said. The words were nice, he told them, but what were they going to do about it?

Later, he returned for another presentation and the church surprised him with the check.

"It doesn't have to be money or even big money. It just needs to be something," he said of acknowledgment efforts.

Kristin Lin, a former editor at the Minnesota-based podcast "On Being with Krista Tippett," had never written a land acknowledgement before undergoing the process in 2018. When she began thinking of the language for their written and audio statement, she thought about ways to make it more powerful by connecting listeners with both the history of the land and the ways Native communities continue to cultivate a relationship with the land.

The research process was humbling, said Lin, who credited Indigenous Minnesotans for their consultation in the podcast's acknowledgement. By the end, Lin said it felt like something everyone should do.