Native Sovereignty Center Grand Opening!

On February 16, 2024, UNC threw a grand opening celebration with more than 75 people visiting throughout the event, braving a heavy winter snowstorm that hit the greater Cincinnati metro area. People came from around the region, including from Dayton, Yellow Springs, and up from Kentucky as well. We were also joined by local businesses from the neighborhood and other BIPOC organizations who joined in to celebrate.

 As a new community space, the Native Sovereignty Center serves as a power-building location and place to come together, offering a full meeting space, lounge, and an open-door policy for people to come by and learn about the Native community in Cincinnati. We also house an Indigenous lending library, which provides people a chance to enjoy and check out books and stories that feature Native cultures and authors from around the world.

Letter To Our Community

To our community:

The team at the Urban Native Collective (UNC) has recently faced the task of removing Jheri Neri from his former position as Executive Director. We took this action on December 1, 2022 after receiving several allegations from women and gender nonconforming people in our community of past and ongoing sexual misconduct. 

As the UNC Board of Directors (Board), it is our duty to ensure that this and other leadership roles at UNC are held in high esteem by the community and that there is trust, honesty, and integrity shared with those we serve, and with our relatives and relations. With this responsibility in mind, the Board made the swift and necessary decision to separate Jheri Neri from the organization and to make the removal and the allegations public. 

The Board has taken several immediate steps to respect the wisdom of those who experienced harm and is continuing to make major changes to processes, activities, structures, and leadership. During this period of change, Sarah Hernandez, former Chief Operating Officer, has been named the Interim Executive Director of UNC and is keeping a sacred circle. Over the course of the next few months, the UNC board will continue to conduct a deeper investigation into allegations of Jheri Neri’s misconduct. 

We wish to assure our community and relatives that our focus on education, advocacy, and support of Indigenous people and Native communities in the region remains strong. We are certain that our community can count on the emergent leadership of Native women that has recently come forward in response to the allegations against Jheri Neri. Our focus during this time is community healing, connection, and building resilience.

We ask the community to be patient with us as we navigate these matters and to expect a transformation of the organization as we work to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for our community. 

Sincerely,

UNC Board of Directors

Urgent Mutual Aid Need For Relatives in Lil'wat!

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In 2019 we had the honor of hosting Jackie Andrew (also known as Huckleberry Eyes) during the week of World Peace and Prayer Day. She is a traditional Bear Dancer and Spokeswoman of Lil’wat Nation located in Interior Salish, BC. Over the years she has continued to be a dear friend and supporter of our Coalition and now her community needs our help!

Lil’wat Nation is on fire. For many years of the First Nations people of Interior Salish have prescribed cultural controlled burns for fire management. The government has disregarded this and has created the current catastrophe. There are currently 270 fires burning across British Columbia and hundreds have been evacuated from their homes. Find out more by clicking here.

 
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You can help support Jackie as she fights alongside her community to protect their home. Her paypal is lilwatlady@gmail.com

Please continue to watch this page as we will update it as the situation develops.

Here are some photos that have been shared with us by Jackie.

If you would like to share this image, please do!

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The Shawnee: The Original Inhabitants of The Ohio River Valley

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Today, the Shawnee are comprised of three federally recognized American Indian tribes—the Absentee Shawnee Tribe, located near Shawnee, Oklahoma; Eastern Shawnee Tribe, located near Wyandotte, Oklahoma; and the Shawnee Tribe, located in Miami, Oklahoma. In pre-colonial times they were a semi-migratory nation, primarily inhabiting areas of the Ohio Valley. Some believe they are the descendants of the Fort Ancient People but this is disputed by others. The Shawnee language belongs to the Algonquian language family, along with other Ohio tribes such as the Lenape, Miami, and Ojibwe. When European settlers came to the Ohio Country in the mid-1600s, the Shawnee way of life was disrupted by encroaching colonization and they were forced to leave their lands in search of unoccupied territory. Shawnee warriors sent out raiding parties, hoping to drive settlers off their land and militias responded, often destroying crops and villages. In the 1830s the Shawnee were forced to move from the Ohio River Valley to “Indian Territory” which is now known as Oklahoma. They still live there to this day.

If you would like to learn more about the Shawnee Removal check out this interactive case study from Native Knowledge 360 at the Smithsonian Institute.

Land Acknowledgement: An Excerpt from the UNC Allyship+ Toolkit

The following is an excerpt from the UNC Allyship+ Toolkit which will be released later this month. We feel that this information is timely for a weekend during which it is typical to celebrate the colonization of Turtle Island.

Land Acknowledgement

The Urban Native Collective resides on the unceded ancestral lands of the Osage, Miami, and Shawnee people which were stolen through forced removal. We also recognize the ancestors of these Peoples, who are referred to by archaeologists as the Hopewell and Adena people and have stewarded this land since time immemorial. 

What is a Land Acknowledgement? Why should you do it?

A land acknowledgement is a statement recognizing the original inhabitants of the land on which you live, work, and play. They can be spoken at the opening of events, put on a permanent marker, or put in the bio of your social media profile. Despite the typical narrative that the Americas were “discovered”, we know that Indigenous People have been here since long before Columbus or the concept of “The United States of America” and still are here today.

A land acknowledgement should be worded in the past, present, and future tense and should not be sugar coated. It should use words such as stolen, forced, settler colonialism, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. That said, land acknowledgements should also celebrate the Indigenous communities that are living and thriving today. This process is a good step in recognizing the complex relationship of history, settler colonialism, and yourself but it should not end there. A land acknowledgement without concrete steps to support your local Indigenous community is performative and does nothing to tear down the oppressive structures under which your Indigenous neighbors and community members exist. Therefore your land acknowledgement should include concrete steps to support your local Indigenous community members.

If you are only acknowledging the original inhabitants of the land on which you reside in words, then you are merely providing lip service. Without building real relationships with your Indigenous community members and working to support them in their struggles you are simply standing at the starting line. In order to join in the journey of Indigenous Sovereignty you have to take steps forward. 

When you are crafting your land acknowledgement it is important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all format. In the Greater Cincinnati region the original inhabitants were forcibly removed, mostly to Oklahoma where they continue to reside today as living, intact cultures and peoples. In some regions the Original Peoples’ descendants still reside there. Where my parents live in so-called Lexington, SC the original inhabitants are the Congaree people. The Congaree were largely wiped out by settlers, however some of their descendants have survived by marrying into the Catawba people who resided nearby. Every region of Turtle Island has a different story of settler colonialism, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. A land acknowledgement should provide education on the history of your region even if it is disruptive and uncomfortable.



If you are unsure of whose land you are on, this website is a great starting place.

An intro to Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women

This was written by one of our members to share as part of the DEI efforts at their workplace. We feel that this is a good introduction to this topic.

When I was 14 my father worked on an oil rig outside of Riverton, Wyoming. He would hear stories from the men he lived with in the man camp, warnings from other white men to not be caught on the reservation after dark. They told him that they had been chased off by Native men and had the bullet holes in their tailgates to prove it. It wasn’t until about fifteen years later when I was working with the Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition that I came into the knowledge that enabled me to contextualize these stories.

The US Department of Justice estimates that 4 out of 5 Native American Women are affected by violence today, and on some reservations native women are ten times more likely to experience violence than their white counterparts. The legacy of violence against first nations women and children dates back to the early 1600s when Matoaka, a young girl of 11 or 12, was kidnapped from her tribe and taken to England. You may know her as Pocahontas, but she is commonly considered the first MMIW. As of 2018, there is still no database system in the United States that tracks how many Indigenous women have been abducted, sexually assaulted, and/or murdered. Families are frequently left wondering about their missing loved ones for years or decades, often without acknowledgement from law enforcement or national data reporting. To further complicate the issue, the data that is reported commonly labels Indigenous women as Latinx, Caucasian, or unknown. There is no real way to know how widespread this epidemic actually is.

Violence against Native women is perpetrated by individuals – abusers, rapists, and traffickers – yet the federal colonial policies and laws allow it to continue with no recourse.  Within the context of the United States government, Native American tribes are considered political groups. They are their own sovereign nations and for the most part they are allowed to police their members/citizens as they see fit. They have degrees of limited authority over non-natives and Native Americans who are not members of their tribe. They do not have the criminal jurisdiction to prosecute non-natives, which then falls to the Federal government under the Major Crimes Act (1885) and the General Crimes Act (1817).

The General Crimes Act allows “federal courts have jurisdiction over crimes by non-Indians against Indians and of non-major crimes by Indians against non-Indians through the application of federal law” and the Major Crimes Act establishes federal jurisdiction in the prosecution of certain serious crimes in Indian Country. These crimes include murder and kidnapping among others. The problem with this is that it forces jurisdiction to be shared between federal, state, and tribal authorities which requires extensive communication amongst law enforcement agencies, prosecutors’ offices, court systems, probation/parole officers, and victim service providers. This causes many of these cases to fall through the cracks and the perpetrators to receive little, if any consequences so the families of these victims to never receive closure or justice for their loved ones.

In light of this information the peppered tailgates my dad had talked about began to make sense. If your grandmothers, aunties, mothers, sisters, and daughters were disappearing daily and your government had repeatedly failed you in protecting them, wouldn’t you defend your community from this genocide? Within many of the 574 federally recognized tribes the belief is held that women are sacred, they bring life in to this world and are the first teachers, political leaders, and carriers of culture and traditions of their communities. In some teachings it is believed that water is the first medicine we receive and we are born out of water. The sacredness of women is tied to this, as they are carriers of this first medicine. In the world we live in today the death and trauma of Indigenous Women comes alongside the trauma experienced by our waterways as well. It is all connected. We are all connected.

I know this is a lot of very heavy information, and I thank you for taking the time to read this. If you feel able, please take a moment to watch Ta’Kaiya Blainey sing the Women’s Warrior Song, an honor song written for MMIW, and reflect on what you’ve learned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeNJnItj5rs

 

Further Reading

 

 

Action Points

  • Read! Educate yourself and your loved ones about this issue! Share what you have learned. Use the hashtags #mmir #mmiw #mmiwg and #mmiwg2s to connect with others that are talking about this issue.

  • Get involved with and follow our local Native American Coalition: https://gcnativeamericancoalition.com/ their website contains events, educational toolkits, opportunities for consultation and special speakers, and much more!

  • Follow Indigenous Women educating and advocating for MMIW. I really love the work of educator and consultant Corrine Rice-Grey Cloud ( https://www.corinnericeconsulting.com/ ), Indigenous People’s Movement ( https://indigenouspeoplesmovement.com/ ), and all of the organizations linked under further reading.

Defund Line 3 Action

Defund Line 3 Action

Solidarity action with the movement to stop line 3 & the Dakota Access Pipeline. The action will “tour” through the bank’s financing Enbridge, including Bank of America & Chase. The march will close at the Federal Building where the Army Corp of Engineers offie is located. Cincinnati joins dozens of cities across the US taking action to Stop Line 3 through March and April. There will be short stops at each location where speakers & activities will occur. The event will have visual art work. Water Protectors can expect to hold artwork & sign cards.

When: Friday April 2 at 11:30 AM

Where: Downtown Cincinnati, Corner of 3rd & Walnut

What is the Ohio Native Land Initiative?

What is the Ohio Native Land Initiative?

THROUGH ITS NEW OHIO NATIVE LAND INITIATIVE, UNC seeks to establish a broader platform to promote Indigenous perspectives on sacred sites, encourage land rematriation efforts, and assert Native sovereignty as foundational to some of the region’s most important natural resources and public spaces.

The Ohio Native Land Initiative is an effort intended to (1) promote greater involvement with and protection for sacred Indigenous sites in Ohio; (2) broaden alliance-building efforts leading to deeper engagement with movements that support the protection of Indigenous sovereignty and cultural rights; (3) encourage serious efforts toward the re-indigenizing of public and private spaces in order to create opportunities that honor Indigenous lifeways and promote spiritual freedom; and (4) broadening education and public outreach around Indigenous culture, lifeways, and Native habitats. The overarching purpose of the initiative is to protect Indigenous lands, sacred sites and natural resources, while advancing awareness of the critical connection between Native sovereignty and environmental preservation.

Gather Film Screening

Gather Film Screening

For centuries after that first Contact, US government and military policy worked to separate indigenous peoples from traditional lands and as a result from thousands of years of cultural and spiritual relationships with that land. A significant aspect of these relationships was incredibly deep ecological knowledge of local food systems. Gather is an intimate portrait of the growing movement amongst Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide.

Gather is available for virtual community screenings starting Fall of 2020. You can screen via an online platform to classes, colleagues, constituents and other types of audiences and conduct post-screening Zoom chats. A DVD option for organizations in Indian Country that prefer to give DVDs to their members. You can access that information here.

Thank you very much to Green Umbrella and to Campsite Sculpture Park for hosting the screening of www.gather.film last night in Cincinnati. Dawn Knickerbocker (Anishinaabe) introduced the film with their own personal reflections on food sovereignty and the strength of the Indigenous communities. Thank you also for everyone's adherence to social distance and mask requirements.

Indigenous Peoples Day Convergence 2020

Indigenous Peoples Day Convergence 2020

THREE DAYS OF AND UNITY, CELEBRATION, & SOLIDARITY

This year’s Convergence offers workshops on Indigenous sovereignty, land and water rights, education, economic development, cultural and language maintenance and promotion, religious freedom, and resistance movements.

During a time when we all have to stay so far apart, this is our chance to come together and feel our strength. This year’s Convergence brings together global Indigenous leaders, change makers, artists and wisdom keepers to offer healing through music, dancing, and story sharing. Access the whole event here.

2020 Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit

2020 Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit

Green Umbrella’s 2020 Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit explored the theme “Cities of the Future: Becoming a Regenerative Region,” and imagined how cities could become regenerative hubs that enhance rather than deplete our natural resources, promote a vibrant, resilient built environment and support healthy, equitable communities. By examining innovative strategies to link rural, urban and suburban communities, we sough to identify new opportunities to build regions that are both socially and environmentally resilient.

Officially we were set to discuss:

“Indigenizing Colonized Spaces: Building Health and Wealth with Food Sovereignty” Native chefs, farmers and educators are cultivating solutions to food access and diet-based health problems by reclaiming ancestral traditions. Can movements to decolonize diet and food systems apply to diverse cities? Can Native culinary and agricultural education help reaffirm relationship to land and place, health and humanity?

Panelists: J. Dawn Knickerbocker, and Shane Creepingbear

Indigenous Solidarity for Black Liberation

Indigenous Solidarity for Black Liberation

Three panelists discuss George Floyd, colonial trauma, violence and property destruction. Mona Jenkins is the steering committee leader for Mass Action for Black Liberation director of development for The Homeless Coalition. Jennifer Knickerbocker is the Grants Coordinator and Board President of the Urban Native Collective.

This conversation was recorded May 30th 2020 at 3pm, prior to reports of white supremacist groups infiltrating protests and enacting their own agendas to undermine legitimate Black Liberation movements. While the views expressed here by individuals do not necessarily represent the views of UNC, UNC defends and supports the right of oppressed and marginalized people to protest, march, and engage in civil disobedience in pursuit of justice and freedom.

MMIW Presentation at International Women's Day

MMIW Presentation at International Women's Day

During the International Women’s March, UNC’s Dawn Knickerbocker presented on the realities of Indigenous women. Dawn speaks to her audience in Cincinnati, Ohio, a place where removal happened not once, but twice. In Ohio there are no reservations, reserves or boundaries. Ohio is a land where the council fires have been smothered.

Dawn discusses what allows Native women to be targeted and treated as disposable without consequence in the United States. She addresses underlying dynamic promoted by Colonization. Colonization is an ideology that supports the dehumanization of those living on the land and their dispossession, murder, and forced assimilation. And this is ongoing - not something for the history books.

Daily, cis and transgender women, femme-identified, and non-binary people encounter violence at the hands of institutions and workplaces that continue to perpetuate inequities and injustice. While we claim to be progressing forward, thousands of Indigenous, Black, and trans women are missing or have been murdered. The number of women and children who are evicted from their housing is soaring while at the same time, they are plummeting further into poverty. Women are dying from being denied reproductive rights and from receiving culturally incompetent health care. Women with disabilities are twice as likely to be poor as compared to women without disabilities. Working class women continue to suffer from sexual harassment, gaps in pay, and inadequate health insurance. The number of Black and Latinx women who are being incarcerated is growing faster than any other population. Women are being denied access to clean and unleaded water due to environmental racism.

Urban Gardening Project

CINCINNATI IS HOME TO THOUSANDS OF NATIVE AMERICANS

THIS LAND ALONG WITH PLANT RELATIVES HAD BEEN CULTIVATED FOR MANY THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

And yet today, the Indigenous people who live here lack access to fresh foods, sacred seeds, and land to plant those seeds. Over the past year, the coalition has been working with donors in the Cincinnati area to reclaim urban spaces to grow and distribute foods and medicines for locals by building garden beds. Our goal in creating these spaces is to increase access for all, reduce dependence on chemicals and commercial growing that does not honor the land, and to expand knowledge of traditional food ways.

In August of 2020, the UNC presented to the Ohio Sustainability Conference in building a regenerative region through the use of our urban gardening methods. Ecological gardeners like us at UNC, those who garden with Indigenous plants including perennials, gardens for birds, pollinators and other wildlife, and regenerative food gardeners who grow organically and consider the needs of pollinators and beneficial insects are already practicing natural climate solutions. Their land is probably already functioning as a carbon sink, rather than being a carbon source, as so many conventionally managed, chemically dependent landscapes are. Our program can shift the city of Cincinnati to Native American wisdom for all.

As a part of our presentation to the Ohio Conference, presenter, Shane Creeping bear said, “Working in a garden develops your relationship to the land. Our ancestors understood that gardening can transform our sense of scarcity and insecurity into feelings of abundance and control – something we all need these days.” Native Americans have some of the highest rates of food insecurity, health problems, poverty, and more. With more than 70% of all Native Americans living off the reservations, we are in need of solutions- especially for urban Natives.

The UNC urban gardening project restores the multi-tribal / inter-tribal urban-Indian community of Cincinnati to physical well-being and a spiritual relationship to the Earth. "food sovereignty is the right of Native Indigenous Peoples to reclaim our own food and agricultural systems, as well as our right to access nutritious traditional foods that are produced using sustainable practices rooted in Indigenous values,'‘ says Ami Lane, Program Director for UNC. An urban upbringing can mean our youth and community lose track of our old way of walking on this Earth. Our goal is to relearn this knowledge. In the process, the UNC activities help the community reclaim food sovereignty – ready access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food – and we meet this need by distributing crops. Our longer-term goal is to participate in farmers markets, deliver household shares of produce to locations in Native neighborhoods, and partner with other community organizations, such as the Black Liberation Movement of Cincinnati. If you would like to get involved with the project, please let us know.

All Eyes on Wet'suwet'en: International Call for Solidarity

All Eyes on Wet'suwet'en: International Call for Solidarity

This is a collection of all Urban Native Collective’s solidarity actions for Wet’suwet’en. This section includes a solidarity statement, a film screening event, a fundraiser, and information about solidarity actions on Haudenosaunee land.

Red Dress Initiative

Red Dress Initiative

The Red Dress installation brings attention to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. These dresses represent thousands of Native American women who go missing every year. Murder rates for Indigenous women in the United States are 10 times the rate of the national average in some areas. According to the National Crime Information Centre database there were 5,712 Native American women reported missing in 2016 and of those only 116 were entered into the Department of Justice’s missing person database. Many cases go unreported so the statistics are likely higher. The insufficient data, shortage of police follow through, and the lack of media attention all add to this national epidemic.

To understand the context of the overwhelming number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States, it is necessary to understand the historical trauma of Native people. Native Americans continue to deal with the repercussions of colonialism, including removal from Native lands, forced assimilation, and Indian boarding schools. A tragic result of historical trauma is continued misunderstanding and prejudice toward Indigenous people, which is often a basis for the violence faced by Native women and girls.

Indigenous women deserve better. They deserve to be protected but it is not just Native women who go missing. In Ohio, the stealing and trafficking of women is a serious issue. No one should go missing.

Houseless March

Houseless March

Every person should have access to housing. We need 28,000 more affordable houses in Cincinnati. Cincinnati shelters are over capacity. People should be able to without fear of losing housing. Families with children, single adults, couples & youth living in shelter, doubled-up & bouncing, in unsafe situation or outside all deserve safe, secure affordable housing.


At 3PM on October 2, 2019 UNC gathered in solidarity with other organizations to support the movement for affordable housing. At Laurel Park park we joined a Community Cookout with nonprofit service organizations like Caracole, Tender Mercies, Lighthouse Youth and Family Services, Bethany House Services, Shelterhouse, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Cincinnati, advocacy groups like the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition and Affordable Housing Advocates, religious organizations like the Metropolitan Area Religious Coalition of Cincinnati, New Prospect Baptist Church, First United Church of Christ, Christ Church Cathedral and a number of other organizations.


"Too often homeless families are invisible," says Susan Schiller of a family shelter Bethany House. "But the numbers are real and the needs are great." The shelter serves more than 300 families a year, including 800 children. Schiller says 57 percent of families who call shelters in Cincinnati are turned away due to lack of capacity.


Cincinnati's fund currently has roughly $611,000 in it. Enough for possibly seven units of housing— or less. A citywide ballot initiative would direct Cincinnati to put $50 million to $100 million in its affordable housing trust fund every year. This fund could help prevent homelessness."It took the city of Cincinnati nearly 30 years to establish the housing trust fund," Over-the-Rhine Community Housing Executive Director Mary Burke Rivers said. "We're grateful for that, but we're not going to wait another 30 years to have it funded properly." There is an estimated 28,000-unit gap in housing affordable to low-income people in Cincinnati and a 40,000-unit deficit across Hamilton County.


After eating, singing, and making signs people gathered together to walk and sing towards City Hall. Nonprofits and housing advocates planned to urge city elected officials to set aside more funds for affordable housing, but the city council meeting was moved, last minute, to a different time. So when we arrived at city hall, people took turns sharing their perspective on affordable housing.

Teaching Native History and Culture in the Classrooms

Teaching Native History and Culture in the Classrooms

Teaching Native History and Culture in the Classrooms

Educators will be on hand to conduct a session for Ohio teachers on the museum’s education initiative, Native Knowledge 360°, and the American Indian Removal: What Does It Mean to Remove a People? Lesson for Grades 7-12. The online lesson provides perspectives from Native American community members, documents, maps, images, and activities to help students and teachers understand an important and difficult chapter in United States history. This four-hour workshop will give educators an overview of the free online resources available to them that can help elevate the educational experience on these subjects in ways that provide context, are relevant, and build academic skills for their students.

Native Knowledge 360° (NK360°) provides educators and students with new perspectives on Native American history and cultures. Most Americans have only been exposed to part of the story, as told from a single perspective through the lenses of popular media and textbooks. NK360° provides educational materials and teacher training that incorporate Native narratives, more comprehensive histories, and accurate information to enlighten and inform teaching and learning about Native America.