This initiative is intended to organize Lutherans for truth-seeking and truth-telling about Lutheran involvement in Indian boarding schools in the United States and their impact on Native peoples. Our Goal is for members throughout the ELCA to know and claim our complicity in the history of church-sponsored Indian boarding schools and these schools’ deliberate, devastating impacts on Native people and their communities, then and now. ALL backgrounds and experience are welcome to participate.
Get Involved
Sept. 30 is the National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools. As a Church, we are committed to understanding our role in the tragic and sinful history of Indian boarding schools so that we can journey towards healing together. You are encouraged to wear an orange shirt and/or raise an orange flag and post a photo on social media.
Order Your Shirt
Prayer Service for Children of Indian Boarding Schools
Use this guide to lead a prayer service to remember and honor the sacred lives of children who were taken to Indian boarding schools.
Learn More
Senator Warren Revives Indian Boarding School Legislation with Bipartisan Support
A bipartisan group of 27 US Senators has reintroduced legislation to investigate the federal government’s centuries-long Indian boarding school policies, which led to the attempted termination and assimilation of Native Americans from 1819 through the 1960s.
Read More
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report
This investigative report is a significant step by the federal government to comprehensively address the facts and consequences of its federal Indian boarding school policies—implemented for more than a century and a half—resulting in the twin goals of cultural assimilation and territorial dispossession of Indigenous peoples through the forced removal and relocation of their children.
Read More
12 years of hell’: Indian boarding school survivors share their stories
Forced by the federal government to attend the schools, Native American children were assaulted, beaten and emotionally abused.
Read More
Healing Voices Volume 1
A Primer on American Indian and Alaska Native Boarding Schools in the U.S.
Download
Orange Shirts
Purchase an orange shirt from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition to wear on Sept. 30, the National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools.
Order Your ShirtWe are the church that shares a living, daring confidence in God's grace. Liberated by our faith, we embrace you as a whole person--questions, complexities and all. Join us as we do God's work in Christ's name for the life of the world.
Facebook
YouTube
Instagram
