![]() ![]() “It’s important we explore our history and own our past,” Red Cloud President Raymond Nadolny told ICT/Reveal. Red Cloud is a microcosm of the issues facing churches, government leaders and Indigenous people over the nation’s sordid boarding school history, and could provide a blueprint for other schools in years to come.Now a day school that provides education to about 600 Indigenous students from kindergarten through high school, Red Cloud is among the first of the former Indian boarding schools in the United States to actively work toward truth and reconciliation. The Holy Rosary Cemetery, shown here in May 2022, sits next to Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. “Right away, I knew that wasn’t right,” Pourier told ICT and Reveal in May.Īfter learning of the discoveries of unmarked graves of children who attended residential schools in Canada, Pourier reached out to Red Cloud leaders earlier this year and told them his story.When he told his supervisor about his discovery, however, the man grew angry, demanding that he never discuss his findings with anyone.Īfter learning of the discoveries of unmarked graves of children who attended residential schools in Canada, Pourier reached out to Red Cloud leaders earlier this year and told them his story.īy then, Red Cloud had already launched a Truth and Healing effort amid growing pressure to reveal the truths about the school’s boarding school past. Evenly spaced, shaped like child-size graves, the mounds were marked with primitive crosses. īack in a corner, past a wooden door that led into a small room with a dirt floor, he saw three small mounds of dirt. Pourier made his way down the rickety steps to the vast basement below Drexel Hall, former home to student dormitories and later a convent for nuns who taught at the school. Pourier, a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Tribe, was working as a bus driver and maintenance person for the Jesuit-run Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge reservation when sometime in the 1990s a supervisor asked him to go into the basement to look for a leak. PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION, South Dakota – Justin Pourier will never forget what he saw in the basement of Drexel Hall. 15 and concludes with part 2 that aired Oct. The podcast, “Buried Secrets: America’s Indian Boarding Schools,” starts with part 1 that aired Oct. This story and a two-part podcast are the result of a collaboration between ICT and Reveal to examine Indigenous boarding schools in the United States. In Canada, the National Indian Residential School Crisis Hotline can be reached at 1-86. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the U.S. WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. ![]()
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