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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, along with thirty local groups including choirs, instrumental ensembles and dancers, gather together in musical meditation and a celebratory parade. This enveloping musical experience is free for the community and extends from Ziegler Park through Over-the-Rhine, and culminates in Washington Park for a full orchestral experience. Performing music co-created with composer Shara Nova and with direction by Mark DeChiazza, artists and audience become one as they move throughout the neighborhood, inviting friends and neighbors to join in, simply listen, or...look around.

The title of the work is taken from Siri Imani’s poem “Lost Generation” which begins with the words, “I need you to care not about yourself or obtaining your wealth / I need you to look around”. Text for the music will be derived from interviews Nova will conduct with local community members focusing on identity, emphasizing our cultural diversity and reflecting on what it means to have a sense of home.

In 1996, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle, began conducting annual World Peace and Prayer Day (WPPD) ceremonies to encourage people of all faiths and all nations to offer prayers for the planet on the summer solstice, June 21st. Across cultures, the solstice is considered a powerful time to pray, especially at sacred sites. For the past 23 years, WPPD has been held at sites across the US and around the world. This year, the gathering comes to Ohio to honor the sites sacred to the Indigenous Peoples of this region.

The 24th annual multicultural honoring of sacred sites will be held at Fort Ancient in Lebanon, Ohio. Fort Ancient is one of the most extensive earthworks sites in the country and has been described as "one of the most extensive, if not the most extensive, work...in the entire West", Fort Ancient has been nominated for potential submission by the United States to the UNESCO World Heritage List, and has been used for many centuries by Indigenous People as a place to gather together for the spiritual ceremony.

Chief Looking Horse leads this annual commemoration to emphasize significant Indigenous sites in Ohio and to inspire youth. Educators, artists, faith-based and civic leaders, and all concerned with the health of our environment will have opportunities to learn during this event. “We all rely on the spirit of Mother Earth, of her waters and lands, along with all living beings, many who are in a place great urgency, because all things are connected,” writes Chief Arvol Looking Horse.

This event is being hosted by the Urban Native Collective, and Miami Council of Native Americans.

April 23, 2019, Antioch College of Yellow Springs, Ohio hosted an Indigenous Water Protector’s Panel and live-streamed the event on Facebook and Youtube. The panel served to bridge the Indigenous community of the greater Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus region with the Indigenous allies, activists, and community members local to Yellow Springs.

The panel went in depth into the need to listen to front-line Indigenous Activists when creating decision making bodies as we create a model to be used nation wide that goes past land acknowledgements and consultations and moves toward Indigenous consent.

After discussing in depth the natural relationship between Indigeneity and water protection, the panel opened up a Q & A with the audience to discuss roles of allies and activists beyond performative allyship. Panelists took advantage of opportunities to create awareness around tendencies for groups to co-opt movements and Indigenous Identity.

The panelists shared impassioned histories of Indigenous Peoples and our relationship to the Earth. These histories served to underline our extensive collective history as water protectors above all other things and brought into focus our responsibilities as stewards of the environment informing our roles as activists.

Water unites all Indigenous peoples and therefore transcends all nations and borders around the world. Protecting our water, is protecting our lands, language and culture and this unity gives us strength in battling the ecological crises facing our planet today.

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has partnered with the The Mercantile Library and Urban Native Collective for a discussion of the award-winning novel "There, There" by Tommy Orange. Join us in the Huenefeld Tower Room at the Main Library on April 15th for a discussion of the book, followed by a panel discussion with local Native American community leaders.

The book discussion will begin at 6:30 p.m., and the panel discussion will begin at 7:30. Feel free to attend either session or both!

”Watch as a group of liberal artists walk the fine line of political correctness in this fresh, satirical comedy. Armed with progressive lingo and questionably good intentions, they attempt to devise a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving play for local elementary schools. Slowly but surely, the well-meaning plans dissolve into an outrageous sendup of PC behavior. The Thanksgiving Play treads the minefields of appropriation to inject some laughter into activism, apathy and all the assumptions in between.”