Orange Shirt Day

A Day of Remembrance, Truth, and Reconciliation

“First, they cut my hair, then they made me eat soap, and then they beat me for speaking my language.”[1]

• Joe Wheeler (Riverside Indian School Survivor)

On September 30th, we will observe Orange Shirt Day, a day to honor the Indigenous children who were taken from their families and sent to boarding schools, many of whom never returned. This day serves as a powerful reminder of the lasting impacts of these schools on Indigenous communities across North America, including the intergenerational trauma still felt by many. As a religious institution, choosing to observe Orange Shirt Day is an important beginning step in the reparative work needed in the pursuit of truth and reconciliation.

Indigenous children from Chicagoland’s traditional tribal lands, including those of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Odawa, and many others, were often sent to boarding schools such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the Genoa Indian Industrial School, the Haskell Indian Nations University (formerly known as the United States Indian Industrial Training School as well as Haskell Institute), St. Joseph’s Indian Industrial School, the Holy Childhood of Jesus School, the Lac du Flambeau Boarding School, and the Pottawatomie Baptist Manual Labor Training School. These schools, many of which were run by religious organizations and subsidized by the U.S. federal government, aimed to assimilate Indigenous children, often at the cost of their language, culture, and identity. To date, over 1,000 unmarked graves of children have been discovered at former boarding school sites across North America, a number that continues to grow as investigations proceed.

Wearing an orange shirt is a small act to recognize the thousands of children, families, and communities across generations that have been impacted by boarding schools.

[1] Kliewer, Addison, Mahmud, Miranda, and Gaylord News, Brooklyn W. “‘Kill the Indian, Save the Man’: Remembering the Stories of Indian Boarding Schools.” Exiled to Indian Country, Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at The University of Oklahoma, n.d. Accessed October 1, 2020. https://www.ou.edu/gaylord/exiled-to-indian-country/content/remembering-the-stories-of-indian-boarding-schools. Joe Wheeler’s family is recalling his time spent at Riverside Boarding School, which was one of several Indian Boarding Schools at the time. His story is like many that have come from thxe Boarding School period which sought to assimilate Indigenous peoples into a culture of whiteness.