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While countless Americans will be celebrating Thanksgiving with a feast this Thursday, the National Day of Mourning will be observed in Plymouth, as it has been since 1970. The gathering is described as “a day of remembrance and spiritual connection, as well as a protest against the racism and oppression that Indigenous people continue to experience worldwide”. Rather than feasting, many who observe the National Day of Mourning fast instead, in mourning the violence their ancestors were subject to, and the genocide European settlers carried out against the land’s Native people.
On the United American Indians of New England’s page dedicated to the event, one can find the details about the National Day of Mourning and March and a livestream link for those who can’t attend in person. The page offers a brief history of the National Day of Mourning, including mention of a settlement from 1998 where Plymouth agreed to the annual march for the National Day of Mourning, and the reason the National Day of Mourning first began: Wamsutta Frank James, a Wampanoag man, refusing to give a dishonest speech at a state dinner.
There is also a link to a page supporting the release of Leonard Peltier, a Native activist who has been imprisoned since 1977, despite a host of questionable and lacking evidence of his role in killing two FBI agents. The petition calling for his release further details the injustices in his case. For over a year, the world has been witnessing a genocide in Gaza carried out by the Israeli government and military and justified through what can only be described as dehumanization. It’s a fitting time to investigate the United States’ own violent history of colonization and genocide, and what is really being celebrated on Thanksgiving Day. I wrote more on the disturbing history of Thanksgiving last year. While the United States (through our tax dollars) continues to fund genocide abroad, we all have to consider the genocidal parallels in U.S. history – and the consequences that follow in the present.