Cook County recognizes Indigenous Peoples Day

Today is Indigenous Peoples Day.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners will honor Indigenous Peoples Day during a meeting Oct. 13 by reading a proclamation adopted in 2015 recognizing the importance of the Grand Portage Anishinaabe in our community.

The proclamation reads, in part, that “Cook County is built upon and shares the homelands and villages of the Indigenous Peoples of this region, without whose knowledge, labor, technology, science, philosophy, arts, and deep cultural contribution, the building of the County and the County’s character would not have been possible.”

Malinda Maynor Lowery is a scholar of Native American history. She writes in a recent commentary in Yes! magazine that the growing recognition and celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day represents the hard work of a decades-long effort to recognize the role of Indigenous people in the nation’s history.

Lowery writes that “while Columbus Day affirms the story of a nation created by Europeans for Europeans, Indigenous Peoples Day emphasizes Native histories and Native people—an important addition to the country’s ever-evolving understanding of what it means to be American.”

For more on the history of Indigenous Peoples Day in Cook County and Minnesota, click here. For more background, follow this link.

Joe Friedrichs October 12, 2020