Skip to Main Content

Anti-Racism: Adults: Indigenous Voices

books, videos, online resources for individual and group study/discussion on racism, antiracism and white supremacy culture

Books

An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States          Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future     Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth          "A Council of Dolls" book cover     Picture of The Dreaming Path     The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge          Finding God on the Indian Road     First Nations Version     Fresh Banana Leaves     Home Is the Road: Wandering the Land, Shaping the Spirit     Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine  -     Edited By: H. Daniel Zacharias    By: Randy S. Woodley     Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage               Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day:  Curtice, Kaitlin B.: 9781587435713: Amazon.com: Books          Not "a Nation of Immigrants"     Oak Flat by Lauren Redniss     Project 562 by Matika Wilbur     The Rediscovery of America     The Sea-Ringed World     So We and Our Children May Live          Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder     Stringing Rosaries     Unsettling Truths     Unsettling Worship          Voices of the People Trade Book (Hardcover)     We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope     When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through

Rev. Kelly Sherman Conroy of Nativity Lutheran Church created this Indigenous Peoples Resources list for all ages.

Find books, curricula, prayer, music, and worship elements (including a full sermon), and community organizations and businesses grouped to help congregations take next steps in antiracism work, creation care, and addressing intergenerational mental health and well-being in the WaterThreads - Woven Together: Water, Community, Well-Being. Available online and via requested download for member congregations - who should email: ministrylab@unitedseminary.edu - for access.

Blogs, Podcasts & Articles

Pueblo Matriarch_PRIMARY.jpg5 Indigenous Women Asserting the Modern Matriarchy

They’re reclaiming the tradition of female leadership and turning the old, white, male-dominated perspective of history on its head.

BY CHELSEY LUGER / Yes! Magazine

MAR 30, 2018

Image: A Sisterhood Is Sacred. Left to Right: April Chavez (Kewa), Talavai Denipah-Cook (Ohkay Owingeh/ Hopi), Jazmin Arquero (Cochiti/Zuni), Dina DeVore (Jemez/Kewa/Laguna), Alexis Wade (Laguna), Marquel Musgrave (Nanbe' Owingeh), and Kim Smith (Diné). Photo by Cara Romero

For Indigenous Peoples, Abortion Is a Religious Right

by Abaki Beck & Rosalyn Lapier; Yes! Magazine

 Kelly Sherman-Conroy, Mato Wašté Winyan (Good Bear Woman), offers these words on her blog: "What are you doing to share our stories. Right the wrongs. What are you doing to not just speak up, but act?"

Walk_group_01CANYON LAKE UMC WALKS WITH NATIVE AMERICAN FAMILIES

By: Doreen Gosmire, director of communications, Dakotas UMC

In A Time For Reckoning: North American Christianity and Indigenous Cultural GenocideMike Morrell offers a call to awareness, humility, repentance, and action; includes resource lists for reading/study; supporting, enjoying and learning from Indigenous artists; and specific actions for individuals, households, and congregations.

John Curl curated this list of Resources for Indigenous Peoples' Day.

  • Broken Lands, hosted by Matthew Cobb and Leora Tadgerson(Gnoozhikaaning, Bay Mills, and Wiikwemkong) – A podcast that arose out of reparations work in the ELCA Northeastern Minnesota Synod and discusses issues of treaty violations, reparations, and reconciliation; episodes are often approximately 30 minutes long, and season 2 just launched in October
  • Native American History Episodes” on Unsung History, hosted by Kelly Therese Pollock – A playlist from a podcast that highlights lesser known and untold histories of historically marginalized groups, including women, people of color, and Indigenous communities; the collection contains 11 episodes, and episodes are generally 40 – 55 minutes long

Land Acknowledgments

Unsettling WorshipAs we are embraced by God's reconciling love in worship, we are equipped to carry that reconciling love into our relationships beyond the worship space. Worship equips us for the work of conciliation, but the liturgy itself needs to be decolonized if it is to truly honor Christian commitments to God and neighbor. This book explores the reformed liturgy in its pattern of Gathering, Word, Table, and Sending, searching it both for colonial vestiges, and spaces of new possibility. Unsettling Worship invites the reader into a conversation about reformed worship in a setting of ongoing colonization. Worship should both unsettle us, and equip us for the essential work of making things right with Indigenous neighbors. 

 

Doing the Deeply Spiritual Work of Land Acknowledgment

Tracy Kugler, a member of St. Paul's UCC in St. Paul, MN

~includes a strong list of resources for congregational or personal learning

 

~~~

Go to Beyond Land Acknowledgment SeriesA Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgment was compiled in conversation with a group of Minnesota Indigenous leaders.

 

 

~~~

Green road sign with cows in background. Sign reads Welcome To The Cheyene River Sioux Tribe Indian Reservation.

How To Write A Land Acknowledgement For Your Parish

 

 

 

~~~

CICSC logoThe California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center offers this Toolkit.

 

 

 

 

 

~~~

Learning from Indigenous Leaders

BL_WeSurvivedTheEndOfTheWorld_Cover_9781506486673cNative America has confronted apocalypse for more than four hundred years. In We Survived the End of the World, Choctaw elder Steven Charleston tells the stories of four Indigenous prophets who helped their people learn strategies for surviving catastrophe, using their lessons and wisdom as guidance for how we can face the uncertainty of the modern age.  

Dive deeper with the discussion guide—perfect for book clubs or individual study.

Find books, curricula, prayer, music, and worship elements (including a full sermon), and community organizations and businesses grouped to help congregations take next steps in antiracism work, creation care, and addressing intergenerational mental health and well-being in the WaterThreads - Woven Together: Water, Community, Well-Being. Available online and via requested download for member congregations - who should email: ministrylab@unitedseminary.edu - for access.

Bam’idizowigamig Creator’s Place

Opened in April, 2023,Bam’idizowigamig Creator’s Place is designed to be a place of work and welcome. A place where people can enjoy earning supplemental income, use and improve their skills and get support in creating their own business or obtaining full time employment elsewhere.

The Ojibwe word Bam’idizowigamig means “a place to support oneself”. Bam’idizowigamig Creator’s Place is located in the small reservation village of Pine Point, MN. Pine Point Village is one of the most poverty stricken areas in the United States. Its location means that until now, to be employed, a person had to have reliable transportation to travel almost 30 miles for work. That and many other barriers have made paid employment of any kind very difficult to obtain. Bam’idizowigamig Creator’s Place is doing something about that – and YOU can help!

Please browse the shop and know that every purchase provides a glimmer of hope to a village where hope is hard to find.

About Us - Waadookawaad AmikwagWaadookawaad Amikwag, (in English, “Those Who Help Beaver”), is a group of innovative Water Protectors who are making a difference!  They are Indigenous Leaders, Professional Drone Pilots, and Certified Water Testers, Citizen Scientists, working in conjunction with environmental organizations and community members to protect clean water and manoomin. They are on the frontline gathering footage, data, and evidence of environmental damage and crimes. Their investigation leads to advocacy with state & federal agencies about the impacts Pipeline 3 is having on wetlands and waterways.

Sign up for the newsletter here. Become a community scientist and join the effort to help beaver!!

8th Fire Solar At White Earth Tribal and Community College, in Mahnomen, a paid solar-worker certification program is preparing students of all ages to install solar arrays. Across the reservation in Osage, 8th Fire Solar is constructing solar thermal panels—basically a sun-powered furnace system—that help people cut emissions and lower winter heating bills.

HOMEFROMSCHOOL_PubStill_28.jpg

INDEPENDENT LENS: Home from School: The Children of Carlisle

By Jennifer Robinson / Web Producer

Searching for the Unmarked Graves of Indigenous Children

By Nilo Tabrizy, Ed Ou and Caroline Kim•October 20, 2021

Gathering

The Minnesota Council of Churches Healing Minnesota Stories provide group Sacred Sites Tour to Explore Indigenous Experience in Minnesota. These tours are designed to "create understanding and healing between Native American and non-Native people, particularly those in various faith communities".

Tours are led by Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs (Mohican) and Bob Klanderud (Dakota). The tours offer an opportunity to learn about Minnesota history from a Native perspective through story-telling and experiencing the sites in silence / meditation / reflection.

Upcoming Tour Dates

Kairos Blanket Exercise KAIROS Blanket Exercise is a 2 to 3-hour interactive and experiential teaching workshop developed in collaboration with Indigenous Elders, Knowledge Keepers and educators that explores the historic and contemporary relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the land we now know as Canada and the Northern US.

KAIROS Teaching & Sharing Circle Banner     

Visit the Wakan Tipi Center, part of the Lower Phalen Creek Project.

  • Share the introductory video.
  • Discuss environmental racism
  • Learn about this land's sacred and cultural significance for the Dakota people
  • Engage in the restoration of prairie, language and traditions
  • Enjoy a staff-guided hike

Multi-Media

In Our Library

Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us about Wisdom,  Persistence, and Strength: Kat Armas: 9781587435089: Books     "All the Real Indians Died Off" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker     Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future          Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults     Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask     First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament, Softcover  -     Edited By: First Nations Version Translation Council    By: Terry M. Wildman     Giving Our Hearts Away: Native American Survival: A Mission Study for 2008-2009: Thom White Wolf ...     God is Red: A Native View of Religion, 30th Anniversary Edition: Deloria  Jr., Vine, Silko, Leslie, Tinker, George E.: 8601200618235: Amazon.com:  Books     An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States     Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day:  Curtice, Kaitlin B.: 9781587435713: Amazon.com: Books          Picture of On This Spirit Walk     Reclaiming Two-Spirits          To Be A Water Protector     Product Image