The United States Interior Secretary will visit South Dakota on Oct. 15 as part of a nation-wide tour to meet with survivors of the Native American boarding school system and their relatives.
Deb Haaland, who is Laguna Pueblo, and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, will visit Mission at 10 a.m. on their third stop of the “Road to Healing” tour, according to a release from the Department of the Interior. It’s unknown where in Mission the meeting will take place.
The tour is part of the Interior Department’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to “shed light on the troubled history of federal Indian boarding school policies and their legacy for Indigenous peoples.”
More:30 Native American boarding schools operated in South Dakota. Here’s where they were located.
Only the first hour of the visit is open to media. The rest of the meeting will be dedicated to survivors and their descendants to tell their stories, according to the release. Trauma-informed support will be available on site.
At least 30 Indian boarding schools operated in South Dakota between 1819 and 1969, according to a report from the DOI. Over 500 children died at the 408 boarding schools across the nation during that time period.
