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A student and teacher
at the Heart of the Earth Survival School in Minneapolis.
From the 19821983 edition of Chimigezi Winage (the school's
yearbook), page 25. (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Library.)
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In 1970, the American Indian Movement (AIM) declared its intention
to open a school for Native youth living in Minneapolis. AIM had
identified the urgent need for Indigenous children to be educated
within their own communities. Two years later, Heart of the Earth
Survival School opened its doors, providing hope to Native families
whose children had endured the racial abuse prevalent in the Minneapolis
public schools.
In the 1960s and early 70s, due in part to discrimination experienced
within the public schools, the dropout rate among Native students
in the Twin Cities hovered between 60 and 80 percent. This led to
an even greater crisis: the widespread removal of truant
children from their homes by the social welfare agencies of Ramsey
and Hennepin Counties. Most of these young people, in violation
of international law, were placed outside of Native communities,
with white foster parents.
According to the United Nations, taking children from their families
and placing them in outside communities is a form of genocide. Whether
the social workers did this to arrest the transmission of Native
culture or not, the effect of these removals was deeply damaging.
In 1970, AIM announced its aspiration to end the practice. Its
plan was to open a survival school, an alternative to
public and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools that would place Indigenous
culture at the center of its curriculum. AIM, which had formed just
two years prior, lacked the resources to open a school; it would
not be long, however, before necessity forced it to act.
In 1971, Patricia and Jerry Roy, whose three sons attended Minneapolis
Public Schools, approached AIM, desperate for help. The White Earth
Ojibwe family was under siege by Hennepin County Social Services,
who claimed the boys were truant. The Roys had made the decision
to homeschool after their sons were repeatedly victimized at school.
The boys reported having their long hair pulled and being called
derogatory names. They refused the school officials order
to cut their hair.
AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt agreed to accompany
the Roys to a court appearance. Banks and Bellecourt furiously challenged
Judge Lindsay Arthur to stop stealing Native children from their
homes. Arthur had heard of the AIM leaders, and during a discussion
in his chambers, he admitted he was sympathetic to their plight,
but said he had no choice but to remove truant children. After a
heated argument, Arthur agreed to send Native kids to AIM, so long
as it could provide them an alternative to public school.
In January 1972, AIM members did just that when they welcomed eight
students, including the three Roy boys, to Heart of the Earth Survival
School. Opened in AIMs Minneapolis office without a penny
spent, the school was austere in the extreme. Students from that
first class recall a basement classroom with a single bare lightbulb,
cockroaches crawling on the walls, and a toilet that wouldnt
stop flushing. There was one old blackboard, a single piece of chalk,
and one pencil for the students to share.
What the school lacked in resources, it made up for in vision.
Unlike the public schools, which taught a Euro-centric perspective,
Heart of the Earths vision included the restoration of vanishing
knowledge like fishing and hunting skills, wild rice gathering,
maple syrup harvesting, and Indigenous languages.
Heart of the Earths educational approach was largely forged
by Ona Kingbird, a young, traditional Anishinaabe who infused the
survival school with Indigenous curricula. For eighteen months Kingbird
worked without pay, until the school located the funding to pay
her.
Heart of the Earths funding came from the last place AIM
expected to find it. In the summer of 1972, the Congress of the
United States passed the Indian Education Act, providing federal
funds for American Indian and Alaska Native education. The act was
a boon for Heart of the Earth, as it allotted funding for each student
at the struggling school.
As its ranks swelled with children referred by the courts, the
school was forced to move twelve times in its first three years.
Government regulators continually shut down Heart of the Earth for
infrastructure deficiencies, such as a shortage of windows, lack
of a playground, and insufficient bathroom facilities. In 1975,
Heart of the Earth finally found a permanent home when it purchased
the campus of United Methodist Church in Minneapolis Dinkytown
neighborhood.
Heart of the Earth developed its own traditions, providing a cultural
and spiritual framework for its students. Every Monday morning,
for example, the entire community would gather to pray and sing
around the drum. The ceremony was repeated every Friday before the
students went home for the weekend. By at least one metric, the
school was a resounding success: over its thirty-five years of existence,
Heart of the Earth graduated more Native students than the Minneapolis
Public Schools combined.
In 2008 Heart of the Earths executive director, Joel Pourier,
was investigated for fraud, and the school was forced to close.
Pourier eventually pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $1.4 million
and was sentenced to a ten-year prison term.
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