26 Nov, 2009
Native American Heritage Day
A day to honor Native Americans - by congressman Joe Baca
This Friday, Nov. 27, we celebrate the second national Native American Heritage Day, to honor the original native residents of this great land of ours.
American families gather together on the fourth Thursday of every November to celebrate Thanksgiving in remembrance of a feast hosted by the Wampanoag Native Americans for the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621. While we always remember the feast of Thanksgiving, we seldom pay homage to the Wampanoag hosts or recount what happened to them afterward.
By the time the Jamestown colony was founded in Virginia in1607, the most accurate estimates are there were substantially more than 30 million Native Americans thriving in numerous tribes and cultures from the North American shores of Alaska to the tip of Cape Horn in South America. Unfortunately, the treatment of Native Americans over the next 300 years is one of the darkest chapters in American history.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that America began to right many of the wrongs committed against our land’s original inhabitants, and the first proposals were made for a day to honor Native Americans.
In conjunction with Native American Heritage Day, President Obama issued a presidential proclamation marking November 2009 as National Native American Heritage Month, and calling for all Americans to recognize Friday, Nov. 27 as Native American Heritage Day. The president also hosted the first ever Tribal Leaders Summit at the White House earlier this month.
Amid the Thanksgiving dinners, football, and shopping this week, let’s take some time to recognize Native American Heritage Day. We must never take for granted the very first inhabitants of this continent – Native Americans, and their many contributions that have greatly enriched the United States.
Story courtesy of: Indian Country Today
Photo courtesy of: Google Images
1 Timothy 4:4 (NIV)
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.
Today millions of Americans will gather together around their dining room tables to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday with their families. While most Americans will celebrate the holiday by enjoying traditional foods such as turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, most of us won't spend much time thinking about the historical origins of the holiday itself.
This Thanksgiving let us all be reminded that everything, and most certainly everyone, that God has created is good and should be received with thanksgiving. While hundreds of years of American history might suggest otherwise, that people with white skin are more valuable than those with black or brown, the distinctively Christian claim is that nothing and no one is to be rejected, God's grace is equally available for all and the Kingdom of God is a family that spans every racial and ethic divide.
So while you're taking time to relax and enjoy good food and family today, take some time to reflect on the meaning of the first Thanksgiving and think about what you can do in the here and now to recreate the peace, harmony, and fellowship between cultures that we remember every fourth Thursday in November.
- Take some time today to think about things that have been discarded by our culture that God is calling you to receive with thanksgiving.
- If there are Native Americans in your community, find out how you can volunteer in a meaningful way on their behalf.
- Bring up Native American Heritage day in your Thanksgiving meal time conversation.
- Ask your older relatives how they feel about the "dark history" of American prejudice against minorities.
- March 2010 [9]
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- December 2008 [23]
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