The U.S. Postal Service Honors Chief Standing Bear with a new stamp today. The Ponca Tribal Leader Championed Native American 14th Amendment Rights. The U.S. Postal Service holds reverence for Chief Standing Bear by honoring him with a Forever stamp. In 1879, Standing Bear won a landmark court ruling that determined a Native American was a person under the law with an inherent right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today, a first-day-of-issue event is free and open to the public. News of the stamp is being shared with the hashtag #ChiefStandingBearStamp.
A new resource for tracking Native residential schools affiliated with the Catholic Church marks a major advance toward healing the wounds of systemic abuse, said one project organizer. “While there are more steps for the Catholic Church to take to move toward truth, healing and reconciliation, this list is a powerful step forward,” said Maka Black Elk, executive director for Truth and Healing at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. On Tuesday. Black Elk and a group of archivists, historians, tribal members and other supporters unveiled a list of some 87 Catholic-run Native boarding schools that had operated in 22 U.S. states prior to 1978. The schools were among more than 400 overseen by the U.S. federal government in the 19th and 20th centuries, with many sites operated by Christian churches and organizations.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.