Children’s Memorial remembers the past and brings hope for healing and beyond

RAPID CITY – The late-September Sunday morning sun was already blazing, and the mercury threatened to climb to triple digits as Rapid City residents gathered for the Seventh Annual Remembering the Children Memorial Walk and to celebrate the grand opening of the Remembering the Children Memorial. More than 250 people registered for the annual walk and received free orange t-shirts, designed by artist Marty Two Bulls Jr., who is part of the Remembering the Children Memorial Art Commission.

The gathering began at Sioux Park’s Flower Garden. There was a sense of reverence and anticipation to hear the reading aloud the names of those who lived and died at the Rapid City Indian Boarding School.

Remembering the Children Executive Director Amy Sazue explained why they hold this walk every year. “The first time we found that there were unmarked graves, we learned all the names of the children who had passed away at the school and we made a commitment to them at that time to never forget them again. To never let their names be forgotten by this community. So, we read the names of the children.”

Sazue said they had invited descendants and relatives of the 50 plus children that passed away at the Rapid City Indian Boarding School to hold the placards bearing the names of their relatives.

Members of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Sicangu Youth Council were also present. In 2015, while traveling back from a conference in Washington, D.C., they made a stop at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The students found that their relatives had never left the boarding school they had been forced to attend. They began efforts to bring the relatives home. In 2021, they Youth Council repatriated the remains of nine children who died and were buried at Carlisle.

“The Youth Council were instrumental in bringing children back from Carlisle to be buried at their homelands,” said Sazue. “We talk about intergenerational trauma and historical trauma enough. I feel like we need to get on the side of intergenerational healing. It’s been an honor to work with these young people and watch them grow into leadership and take this issue and advocate for it and educate people.”

After the names were read, the procession of vivid orange made its way to the Remembering the Children Memorial site a few blocks away. Within sight of where the now-demolished boarding school once stood, the Memorial serves as a powerful reminder of a painful past and a beacon for a more inclusive future. While the atmosphere was undoubtedly somber, there was also a palpable sense of purpose and community unity now that the project is finished. This event not only honored the memory of the children but also highlighted the community’s opportunity to acknowledge its past and move forward together.

Three separate organizations – Remembering the Children Memorial, He Sapa Otipi an Indigenous hosted community center and the Rapid City Indian Boarding School Lands Project – worked together to make the memorial happen. Complicating the matter were long-standing issues of land ownership and questionable land transfers. The land with the unmarked graves has been placed into the trust of the Oglala, Cheyenne River and Rosebud Sioux Tribes to protect the graves into perpetuity.

Memorial site officials said the project was ahead of schedule thanks to the hard work from their partners Zuya Sica Consulting LLC, TerrSite Design and Scull Construction. Amy Sazue Executive Director from Remembering the Children Memorial said it’s about 90 percent finished. “There is still landscaping that needs to be done but the timing was right to hold the Grand Opening in conjunction with the Annual Memorial Walk and we wanted it to coincide with Orange Shirt Day and Every Child Matters.” Sazue said it made sense to move the date by a few days. “We want to keep building that awareness and keep building the advocacy part of this story and of boarding school history across our country. That was really what we were trying to do this time. Now everybody who came will have an orange shirt for tomorrow (Sept. 30) and maybe understands a little more why Orange Shirt Day, or the National Day of Remembrance is so important.”

Sazue said this is a documented story that they are telling. “It’s well documented that Rapid City has struggled with race relations and discussing narratives that are difficult to understand. Maybe that happened a long time ago, but I just think as citizens here today we all have a responsibility to understand the history of the area, the land that we are living on and the people who were here before colonization and that that, is us. This is a story about us, from us, by us and we’re proud to be able to tell that to help center our own people.”

An Indigenous community center was approved in March after the initial request in July of 2021. Sazue said there have been efforts for at least 75 years to build a community center, so the Native community members have a place to hold ceremonies, wakes and funerals, Lakota language and culture classes, a fitness center, community kitchen and more. “But it’s up to us now,” said He Sapa Otipi Executive Director Cante Hart. “New relationships need to be created. There never was a good relationship in Rapid City among Native and non-Natives so it’s up to us to create these new relationships and set the tone and the new standard for our upcoming generations to be good relatives.”

Sazue said it starts with understanding. “This event is for everybody. It’s inclusive. Everybody’s invited. This is a community event. We want everybody Native and non-Native to understand this story. To understand the history of Sioux San. We have a very distinct history with that campus. That campus is the one sign that we have been in this community at least since 1898. I think non-Native people have a lot of work to understand their role in all of this. I would encourage them to reach out, educate themselves, to read and to ask questions. But that’s their work.”

Orange Shirt Day was founded by Phyllis Webstad (Shuswap) who today lives in Williams Lake BC. Webtsad is a boarding school survivor who at age 6 was taken to enroll in the Residential School System. As she told her story at a recent Association of Fundraising Professionals conference, Westad said she was excited to finally be going to school. On her first day she was dressed in her new school clothes that her grandmother had bought for her – a bright orange shirt with a collar. Upon arrival at the school, Webstad’s clothes and other belongings were taken. She said she never saw the orange shirt again.

Webstad’s mother and grandmother were also survivors of the Residential Schools.

In 2015, the three tribes passed a resolution, which they reaffirmed in August 2020, expressing their support for a memorial intended to honor and safeguard unmarked graves. The tribes were given assurances that the memorial’s development would align with Lakota values and establish a lasting site for prayer, remembrance, and healing.

From 1819 to the 1970s, the U.S. government ran Indian boarding schools to forcibly assimilate Native American children. These institutions separated children from their families and cultures, with the goal of erasing their indigenous identities. This policy caused deep, lasting trauma in Native communities. Children attending boarding schools endured physical and emotional abuse and many died.

A comprehensive effort to recognize the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies was announced by Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in June of 2021. The goal of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative is to address the intergenerational impact and to shed light on the traumas of the past.

An investigation, the first of its kind, was led by Assistant Secretary to Indian Affairs Bryan Newland. The first volume was released in 2022. The second and final volume was released this past July. The investigation revealed key details about the institutions, including student deaths, burial sites, religious involvement, and federal funding.

It found that at least 973 Native American children perished in the U.S. government’s abusive boarding school system over a 150-year period. The investigation found marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the more than 400 U.S. boarding schools where Native American children were forcibly assimilated into white society. The causes of death included disease and abuse during the 150-year period which ended in 1969. It also provided policy recommendations for healing and redress. Both report volumes and appendices are available on the Bureau of Indian Affairs website.

Haaland posted on X on September 30, “I have made it one of my top priorities to help tell the story of the trauma of federal Indian boarding school policies with Indigenous voices front and center. On this National Day of Remembrance, we reaffirm our promise to let survivors’ voices be heard.”

While the United States has multiple days of remembrance, September 30 is recognized in both Canada and the United States as the National Day of Remembrance for Indian boarding schools. The date September 30 has been designated Orange Shirt Day, to recognize the traumatic and lasting impact of Indian boarding schools. Although it is not recognized as a federal holiday in the United States, it is in Canada, where it originated in 2013. The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day, became a federal holiday in Canada in 2021.

Aligning the annual Memorial walk and grand opening with September 30 was intentional. “There is no federally recognized holiday,” said Sazue. “The U.S. is behind.”

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

 

 

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