`The 2023 Montana Legislature is in session and newly elected Indigenous lawmakers are hard at work.
One of the first resolutions passed is a joint resolution to recognize the trauma of American Indian Boarding Schools and to call on the government to make a federal day of remembrance.
Susan Webber, Democrat-Browning, is carrying the resolution. It asks for the 68th Montana Legislature to recognize the trauma inflicted by removing American Indian children from their homes and sending them to government run boarding schools.
At these boarding schools, children were beaten for speaking their language and forbidden from practicing their culture. Upon arrival, the children were taken in, their hair cut short, and they were forced to endure physical and psychological abuse during their time there.
Webber is a survivor of Indian Boarding Schools, having attended the Cut Bank Boarding School.
“I just want to say that I wanted to bring this bill, because I, my generation, is the last generation that had to go to boarding school,” Webber said. “We had to go to boarding school. Now I’m not 150 years old. This was still going on in the ‘60s.”
The resolution is asking the federal government to declare a federal day of remembrance for those who endured this act of genocide.
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