Keith Colston, administrative director for the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs, poses at CCBC’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day Ceremony with (l-r) Courtney Sargent, Kim Jensen, Lauren Pollak, Sandra Kurtinitis, and Joaquin Martinez.
Along with so many of our colleagues, CCBC is proud to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Through acknowledging this day, we honor the many cultures and traditions that flourished long before the United States became a country. Indigenous Peoples’ Day urges us to move beyond the narrow accounts in history books which have often misrepresented, neglected and omitted vast groups of people from our textbooks. Nonetheless, today we are the beneficiaries of a rich heritage and culture which their legacy has fostered, tribute to their resilience, innovation and native wisdom that guided these communities through the centuries. Their ingenuity has deeply influenced our contemporary knowledge of agriculture, medicine, music, art and democracy.
At every community college across the country, our wide open “open door” mission fosters an environment that is safe and welcoming for all. Indigenous Peoples’ Day reminds us that colleges like ours must be built around a community rooted in respect and understanding, a place where every voice is heard and valued. At CCBC, we have committed to a premise that says, “Every One Of Us Counts” and therefore, every day, we “Take Actions That Matter.”
Indigenous Peoples’ Day offers all of us an opportunity to reflect on the work we do and the way in which we do it, no matter our individual cultural backgrounds. The day represents a symbol of hope, of healing and of having the strength to create a strong sense of community that includes and welcomes all. In the lyrical tradition of the Native American Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving address, we greet the natural world under the canopy of blending our hearts and minds together as one, elevating us to a position of gratitude. The message is a beautiful reminder of those natural things for which we should be thankful—water, trees, sun, moon—as well as truth, justice, and righteousness. As we strive to gather as one with hopes to live in harmony, this vision remains as noble a goal for Americans of the 21st century as it was for indigenous peoples of centuries past.