Native American Tribes in Michigan are joining hundreds of others across the country, waiting on a U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the Indian Child Welfare Act. The Indian Child Welfare Act has been in place for 43 years to protect the well-being of Indigenous families and children, according to The Native American Rights Fund. It is meant to keep children connected to their Tribes and prevent them from being taken away by the federal government to be put in foster homes. The Brackeen v. Haaland case began in 2017 when the Brackeen family wanted to adopt an Indigenous child they had been fostering. The family had initially been rejected due to the ICWA. This was because the court ruled the child should first be with his own family or another within the Tribe before being adopted by a non-Native family.
Today, there are more than 50 Native-owned radio stations in the U.S., according to Native Public Media, a New Mexico nonprofit. There are several in South Dakota including KILI in Pine Ridge, KLND at Standing Rock and of course our own KIPI right here at Cheyenne River… Native radio is a critical source of information for people living in rural reservation communities. “[These] stations are your communication, are your link. They were your internet before the internet,” says Alfred Walking Bull of KFAI Radio in Minnesota. Walking Bull grew up on the Rosebud…In the early 1970s, Native radio was rare. There were only a few Native-owned and operated stations in the U.S., mostly in North Carolina and Alaska. When the standoff at Wounded Knee ended, Pine Ridge residents made that — and opening a medical clinic — a priority.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.
