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Chamberlain School Board Refuses to Hear King Letter on Honor Song

Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., has put the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change's name on the line, writing the Chamberlain School Board a letter asking them to honor American Indian students' request to include a Lakota honor song in their high school graduation ceremony.

The Chamberlain School Board appears disinclined to listen. Last week Chamberlain superintendent declined comment on the letter. Chamberlain resident James Cadwell tells me that last night, the board refused to allow him and Lynn Hart from Flandreau to place the letter on the agenda.

I want to believe that civil discourse can solve most of our problems. But when public officials won't listen, when they block further discussion, it's time to stop talking and start voting. Chamberlain residents, if you want an honor song at graduation, it's time to get your friends together, take every one of them to the polls, and make sure you are the deciding majority at the next election, and the next, and the next. Vote out the people who won't listen, vote in the people who will.

20 Comments

  1. jerry 2014.04.10

    Typical haters each and every last one of them. They possess no capacity to feel the shame of what they are doing. The vote is the only answer, if not now, when?

  2. jerry 2014.04.10

    What are the school board members names and political affiliations? When is the election for those board members?

  3. larry kurtz 2014.04.10

    Are other religious songs featured at these graduations?

  4. larry kurtz 2014.04.10

    If the pledge of allegiance, star-spangled banana or any other nationalistic jingoism happens as part of this graduation program it is a chilling effect on the rights of persons who believe that a government to government relationship exists under treaty.

  5. larry kurtz 2014.04.10

    Brandon Johnson: call your office.

  6. larry kurtz 2014.04.10

    You too, Brendan....

  7. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.04.10

    Is the honor song unavoidably religious?

  8. El Rayo X 2014.04.10

    Cory, it's good that you did not publish the date, time and location of this graduation exercise. A couple hundred friends and family of Lakota graduates might attend and spontaneously break into a honor song. We can't have that sort of thing.

  9. Roger Cornelius 2014.04.10

    Upon receiving their diplomas, the Native students need to walk off the stage enmass if the honor song is not allowed.

    It would also be great if a group of Indians would do the ghost dance during the ceremony

  10. mike from iowa 2014.04.10

    Here is a response from Jim Cadwell,a bi-lingual teacher at Crow Creek Tribal School from last year's meeting-

    In a statement posted on his Facebook page, Cadwell said the honor song was again confused as being religious. He said in a statement in April that, “The honor song is exactly that, a song that acknowledges the efforts of all the students graduating and encourages them to continue their education.”
    Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/05/15/south-dakota-school-wont-allow-native-honor-song-graduation-149362

    One board member disagreed with including the song because it was not in English so he didn't think that everyone was included.

  11. Craig 2014.04.10

    "Vote out the people who won't listen, vote in the people who will."

    What if the current school board members are listening to the voters? Has anyone thought that the majority of parents/voters in the community don't want the song played during their ceremony?

    I really don't know how to react to the idea, because I grew up in an area where we had a large Native American population yet there was no such drama. We honored Native American culture during homecoming, but no such luck during the graduation ceremony. Then again our sports team name (which is still in use today) would be considered racially offensive to much of the nation, so perhaps we were just out of touch.

    Makes me wonder if an area with a high population of Norwegians would feel they need to have a song played honoring their heritage, or a population with a high population of Germans needs to have a David Hasselhoff song played. (ha)

    Is it really about honoring heritage, or is it about singling out a specific racial or ethnic group and giving them special treatment? What am I missing here?

  12. Joe K 2014.04.10

    Craig - from what I hear from some folks tied to that area, you may have hit the nail on the head...

  13. jerry 2014.04.10

    I wonder how many federal dollars go to this school.

  14. Lanny V Stricherz 2014.04.10

    Hey folks it is not just Chamberlain. If memory serves, Custer, (the town and school) went through this same thing a few years ago. Maybe this is something that the legislature needs to tackle during one of those honor Native American days that they have like honor the veterans days, etc.

  15. Jenny 2014.04.10

    Time to call the MN news circuits again, and to call for a boycott of Chamberlain, SD.

  16. Bill Fleming 2014.04.10

    If there was a group of exchange students from Japan, or England or India who were graduating en masse from Chamberlain High and they wanted to do a special song from their homeland when they graduated, would the school allow it? Answer that and you'll have your answer. The Lakota people are bi-national, Craig. They live in two cultures simultaneously, precisely as would an exchange student.

  17. lesliengland 2014.04.11

    below is just a reminder of the extent (if accurate) of what the Lakota had "title" to, and without political power, were continually stripped of possession.

    there are 18,000 democrats in Penn. Co. we can gas on either side of Brule County and send a message to the school board.

    THE SIOUX INDIAN RESERVATION.

    from "Dakota", Compiled by O. H. Holt, 1885

    "This reservation occupies more than twenty-two per cent, of the entire area of Dakota, containing 34,125 square miles. It covers a tract embracing twenty-five entire counties, west of the Missouri river, extending north above the forty-sixth parallel, west to the eastern boundaries of the first tier of counties east of the Montana and Wyoming line, and south to the southern boundary of the Territory. The Reservation also includes portions of Hughes, Buffalo, Brule and Charles Mix counties, east of the Missouri, but aside from these strips this river forms its eastern boundary. The Reservation was created by a treaty with the various tribes of Sioux Indians in 1868. and was originally much larger, but was reduced in 1870 by the Government withdrawing the Black Hills. The Reservation, which contains much of the finest agricultural and grazing land in the Territory, is occupied by about 25 000 Indians. It was proposed by a commission appointed in 1888 to reduce this Reservation by purchasing about 14,000 square miles of the southern portion, and a bill for this purpose passed the Senate and is now pending in the House of Representatives. It is highly probable that this bill will become a law during the present year, thus opening up for occupation and settlement an extensive area of choice lands."

  18. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.04.12

    Hey, Leslie—not that this will help the honor song discussion, but how would you feel about returning to the 1868 boundaries of the Great Sioux Reservation?

  19. lesliengland 2014.04.14

    wiken said what does it matter? he sounds like a racist. I am an idealist. we took, we promised, we fought. we are responsible. the Indians paid the price. they were here first. 16,000 years ago. so congress needs to make it right. I could care less if the 1868 boundaries or 1851 boundaries, ect. were returned too. sd is a racist, republican little state that continues to slander the Lakota. if sd started to honor the legacy it gained, maybe pragmatism is in order, but it doesn't. it continues to elect a party that doesn't even want to address the issue. however, my family only goes back to 1918 here, so I may not be able to relate to the sanborns, hearsts, duhamels ect. Christ, just the homestake gold is worth $53 billion today. And people think the Indians should give up for .9 billion?

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