Audrey Thayer, coordinator of the Greater Minnesota Racial Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota, has a commentary in the Bemidji Pioneer this week titled Sesquicentennial missed reconciliation (excerpt only; full-text currently posted to the Mendota Mdewakanton blog here).
… the 150 years Sesquicentennial for me was a strong reminder of the history of destruction and stealing of land from the original people who lived in this state.
I am glad I supported the events that tried to grasp the concepts of the past 150 years but I fear people missed an opportunity for reconciliation with native people and the word exclusion comes to my mind.
MPR’s Tom Robertson did a story about Audrey Thayer back in 2004 when she was hired by the ACLU for the position in Bemidi.