The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) is readying a new tool to help people search for information about their relatives who attended more than 500 U.S. boarding schools. The online archive will start with digitized versions of 50,000 federal documents. Those organizing the project hope to build on the number and scope of the records over time. Tens of thousands of Native children attended the schools. Some never returned home. What records there are for those children are scattered among various institutions. The NABS’s efforts are among a handful aimed to increasing and consolidating access to information about the boarding school era.

GUESTS

Selena Ortega-Chiolero (Tarahumara), museum specialist for the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council

Fallon Carey (Cherokee Nation), digital archives assistant for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

Deidre Whiteman (Meskwaki, Dakota, Ojibwe, Hidatsa), director of research and education for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

Shelly Lowe (Diné), chair of the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities