On ‘Indigenous People’s Day’ At U Of I, A Tree Will Be Planted To Honor Tribal Nations

A campus-wide celebration of Indigenous People’s Day will take place Monday, October 8, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The event is open to the public and will begin at 11 am on the South Quad near the ACES Library.

Indigenous People’s Day has been celebrated by students and staff on campus for decades on the second Monday of October, said U of I Native American House Director Nichole Boyd.

The celebrations have always been open to the campus and community, but this is the first time campus leaders will be joining to share “how we are moving forward as an institution and what it looks like to collaborate with indigenous communities,” Boyd said.

At the event, a sugar maple tree will be planted on the U of I’s South Quad during the event to commemorate what Boyd describes as immense growth over the past year in how the university works with tribal nations.

“I’ve only been on campus for almost a year,” Boyd said, “and I’ll tell you, this isn’t the same campus that I stepped foot on.”

Tribal governments have a contentious relationship with other governmental entities, Boyd said. But to give an example of the progress that has been made, she said indigenous people now have a seat at the table in conversations about how to improve relations between the campus and the Native American community.

Also, Chancellor Robert Jones has worked to ensure the university acknowledges that the land on which the campus sits belonged to native people first.

“You should know whose land you’re on, you should know their history, and you should know how they got dispossessed of that land,” Boyd said. “As a Tier-1 research institution, we have an obligation to share that history and talk about how that has influenced everything that has come before and after that.”

A plaque that will be placed near the sugar maple tree will read:

“This tree is to remind us of the indigenous peoples, past and present, for whom Illinois was a home prior to the university’s founding in 1867 and remains so to this day. These lands ground indigenous communities and root their understanding of themselves. The dedication of this tree acknowledges the indigenous historical context in which we exist.”

As NPR Illinois reports, a 2017 law designates the last Monday of September as “Indigenous Peoples Day” in Illinois. The state still recognizes the second Monday in October as Columbus Day with the closure of government offices.

But Boyd said indigenous people prefer not to acknowledge the federal holiday honoring Christopher Columbus, who “kicked off hundreds of years of genocide.” Instead, they set aside the day to “celebrate our ancestors, our cultures, our communities, our languages, our accomplishments,” she said.

The keynote speaker at the event will be Charlene Teters, an academic dean at the Institute of American Indian Art in New Mexico and U of I alum who gained national prominence by drawing attention to the impact of inaccurate Native American imagery on indigenous communities.

Follow Christine on Twitter: @CTHerman