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November is Native American Heritage Month

The Children of Carlisle

November is Native American Heritage Month — a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to honor the important contributions of Native people. It’s also a time to acknowledge the unique challenges Native people have faced both historically and in the present, and the ways in which tribal citizens have worked to conquer these challenges. NEPM is committed to inclusion and representation in media. For Native American Heritage Month, we offer a diverse collection of programs on TV, radio and online. Enjoy!

LISTEN

Uprooted

The Long Form
Uprooted: The 1950s plan to erase Indian Country

Sunday, November 7 at 6 p.m. on NEPM 88.5
In the 1950s, the U.S. government launched a campaign to assimilate Native Americans by eliminating reservations, terminating tribal governments, and persuading Native people to move to cities. When they arrived, they were met with open discrimination, and they struggled to find good jobs and housing. However, as their numbers in cities grew, Native Americans from hundreds of different tribes found each other and solidified their political power.

WATCH

Molly of Denali

Molly of Denali Season 2 Premieres Monday, Nov. 1
Weekdays at 7 a.m.
Molly of Denali is a PBS Kids action-adventure comedy that follows the adventures of feisty and resourceful 10-year-old Molly Mabray, an Alaska Native girl. It is the first nationally distributed children’s series in the U.S. to feature an Alaska Native lead character. An entire week of new episodes gets started on Monday, Nov. 1 with the story of Elizabeth Peratrovich, an Alaska Native civil rights leader who led the enactment of the nation’s first state or territorial anti-discrimination law in 1945. In the episode, she inspires Molly to stand up to a group of tourists who make stereotypical assumptions about Alaska Native people.

Battle Over Bear Ears

Battle Over Bear Ears
Monday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. on NEPM WORLD
Bears Ears, a remote section of land in Utah, lined with red cliffs and filled with juniper and sage, is at the center of a fight over who has a say in how Western landscapes are protected and managed. At its heart, it’s a battle for homeland and sovereignty.

On a Knife Edge

America Reframed: On a Knife Edge
Tuesday, Nov. 2 at 8 p.m. on NEPM World
On a Knife Edge is the coming-of-age story of George Dull Knife, a Lakota teen growing up on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. The film traces George’s path to activism, inspired by his family’s history of fighting for justice for Native Americans. His focus: shutting down liquor stores in Whiteclay, a tiny town nearby that exists only to sell beer to the reservation’s vulnerable population.

Sand Creek Massacre

Sand Creek Massacre
Friday, Nov. 5 at 4 p.m. on NEPM WORLD
Stream Anytime

What would lead approximately 675 volunteer soldiers to attack a peaceful settlement of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in southeastern Colorado Territory? On November 29, 1864, Colonel John Chivington led a group to do just that, resulting in the deaths of over one hundred men, women and children. This documentary revisits the horrific events and uncovers the history 150 years later.

America Reframed Sisters Rising

America Reframed: Sisters Rising
Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 8 pm. on NEPM World
Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault than all other American women, and 86% of the offenses are committed by non-Native men. SISTERS RISING follows six women who refuse to let this pattern of violence continue in the shadows. Their stories shine an unflinching light on righting injustice on both an individual and systemic level.

The Children of Carlisle

Independent Lens
Home from School: The Children of Carlisle

Tuesday, Nov. 23 at 9 p.m. on NEPM TV
"Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” This was the guiding principle that removed thousands of Native American children and placed them in Indian boarding schools. Among the many who died at Carlisle Indian Industrial School were three Northern Arapaho boys. Now, more than a century later, tribal members journey from Wyoming to Pennsylvania to help them finally come home.

STREAM

The Warrior Tradition

The Warrior Tradition
The largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands? The film relates the stories of Native American warriors from their own points of view – stories of service and pain, of courage and fear.

Art of Home A Wind River Story

Art of Home – A Wind River Story
Two indigenous artists create new works reflecting on their tribal homeland — the Wind River Indian Reservation. Ken Williams (Arapaho) is a Santa Fe art celebrity and Sarah Ortegon (Shoshone) is an up-and-coming actress in Denver. Both artists travel to Wind River Reservation to reconnect with their ancestors and present their artwork to a somewhat isolated community.

Without a Whisper

Without a Whisper
 Uncover the hidden history of the influence Indigenous women had on the beginnings of the women’s rights movement in the United States. Before the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848, European colonial women lacked even the most basic rights, while Haudenosaunee women had a potent political and spiritual voice and authority in all aspects of their lives. The contact that the early suffragists had with Haudenosaunee women had a vital impact on their struggle for equality.

POV Standing Above the Clouds

POV: Standing Above the Clouds
Standing Above the Clouds follows Native Hawaiian mother-daughter activists as they stand to protect their sacred mountain Mauna Kea from the building of the world’s largest telescope.

STREAM WITH NEPM PASSPORT

N Scott Momaday Words From a Bear

American Masters
N. Scott Momaday: Words From a Bear

Delve into the enigmatic life and mind of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet N. Scott Momaday, best known for “House Made of Dawn” and a formative voice of the Native American Renaissance in art and literature.

Independent Lens Dawnland

Independent Lens: Dawnland
Dawnland reveals the untold story of Indigenous child removal in the United States through the first government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission in the nation, tasked with investigating the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on Native American communities.

The Peoples Protectors

The People’s Protectors
Native American veterans reflect on their experiences in the military during the Vietnam War. Even as they struggled with their relationship to the United States government from past oppression; the Dakota, Lakota, and Ojibwe warriors still felt compelled to honor their duty to their people as Akichita | Ogichidaag| Warriors, as protectors of the people.

STREAM LOCAL STORIES FROM NEPM

It's Been Erased Stockbridge Mohicans Retell Reclaim Their Story In Berkshires

'It's Been Erased': Stockbridge Mohicans Retell, Reclaim Their Story In Berkshires
The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians today are based in Wisconsin. But their homeland spanned the Housatonic and Hudson river valleys, and stretched from Manhattan into Vermont.

Over the decades, members of the tribe have come back to the Berkshires to protect cultural sites. Tribal members are now retelling their story — and working to reclaim bodily remains and objects, including a centuries-old document.

Archaeological Dig Uncovers Mohican Floors

Archaeological Dig Uncovers Mohican Floors, Suggesting Permanent Berkshire Homesites
The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans wrapped up their second archeological dig in the Berkshires this summer with a discovery that could shift thinking about the tribe's history in the region.

The seal of the Stockbridge Mohican Nation engraved on a gravestone in the Stockbridge Cemetery.
Nancy Eve Cohen
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NEPM

Stockbridge Mohicans Partner With Williams College; Family Name 'Source Of Pain' To Tribe
Williams College and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians are launching a new collaboration focused on historic preservation. The school is providing a three-room office for the tribe in downtown Williamstown, Massachusetts, and funding student interns.

The partnership has a special significance because of the tribe’s history with some members of the Williams family.

Resolve Seeks New Or Revised Massachusetts State Seal And Motto

Resolve Seeks New Or Revised Massachusetts State Seal And Motto
Massachusetts lawmakers on Wednesday took a step toward potentially replacing the official state seal and motto, a victory for activists who have argued for decades that the current versions disparage Native Americans.

Nolumbeka Project Connects Public with Native Culture

Nolumbeka Project Connects Public with Native Culture
David Brule frequently heard fellow Native Americans says they didn’t know how to access their culture. Brule's work with the Nolumbeka Project helps connect everyone, not just Native Americans, with native culture. Brule and Liz Coldwind Santana Kiser sat down with Carrie Saldo to explain how the organization works to preserve New England’s tribal heritage.

PBS LEARNING MEDIA

Up Heartbreak Hill

Find videos, lessons, and interactive activitiesfor Native American Month from PBS Learning Media. Students grades 3–12 can learn about Native American art, history, and culture presented by historians, artists, students, and scientists.

Native American Heritage Month | All About the Holidays

8 Children’s Books to Celebrate Native Heritage