Issue 3 — March 2024

Gratitude for Our Supporters

This spring we have developed exciting partnerships, delivered engaging dialogue events, and welcomed over 100 new newsletter subscribers! We want to take this time to acknowledge all of those who support Whose Land?. Whether you are a day-one funder or a day-1000 subscriber, your support has been crucial to keeping us going in the early stages of our work.

We’ve had a busy and exciting month! We visited partners in New York, both longstanding and new. We began the community feedback step of the Northside Community History Collection Project, sponsored by the Wisconsin Humanities Council. And the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in partnership with the Department of the Interior awarded the Oneida Nation and Whose Land? a public humanities grant as a part of their interagency Federal Boarding School Initiative. The grant will support our work with elders and Oneida Nation High School students. More information on each of these projects can be found on our website.

Thank you all for your continued support. Please check out our featured stories, reflections, and engagement opportunities below. We’ll be in touch next month with another round of updates!

Kayla

Trip to New York

In late February, Whose Land? Executive Director, James Levy was invited to New York to give the John Cavanaugh lecture at St. John Fisher University where he discussed Whose Land?’s work in Haudenosaunee territories and the upcoming Whose Land? podcast.

Taking advantage of the proximity to our New York partners and putting some miles on his rental car, James traveled back and forth between Rochester (Seneca territory), Syracuse (Onondaga territory), and Utica (Oneida territory) to visit partners and conduct research. He met with our friends Hazel Powless (Oneida Bear Clan), Kalhaku McLester (Oneida Wolf Clan and Whose Land? board member) and Diane Swords (Intergroup Dialogue Program at Syracuse University); Liseli Haines and Buffy Curtis (pictured below), the Quaker landowners who returned that land to nine Oneida women trustees in 2019; Dr. Christina Limpert, Department of Environmental Studies, SUNY ESF; and Jessica Harney, whose work you can learn about in the Partner Shout-Out section below.

James also had the chance to visit the Oneida County Historical Center and a number of other museums and historical societies. We are so grateful for these prosperous and fulfilling partnerships and are looking forward to fruitful collaborations in the future.

NEH & Dept. of the Interior Grant for Oneida Boarding School History Project

We are pleased to announce that Whose Land? and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin have been granted funding for their joint venture—the Oneida Nation Boarding School History Project! The grant comes from the Federal Boarding School Initiative Partnership of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Department of the Interior.

The grant supports the exploration, recovery, and preservation of the individual, family, and collective experiences of boarding school education across the Wisconsin Oneida community. Together with the Oneida Nation, we will build opportunities for inter-generational conversation, inter-community education, and intra-community healing. The project officially began on Thursday, March 21st with a dialogue session between Oneida elders and youth, as pictured above.

Events Roundup

Metcalfe Park “Sharing Our Stories” Days:

Together with Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, we hosted the first community feedback event for our Northside Community History Collection Project on March 15th. We are thankful for all of those from the Metcalfe Park community and beyond who participated in the event.

Our second community feedback event will be held this Friday, March 29th! This event is targeted to members of the Northside Milwaukee communities, who can sign up here. For more information, please inquire here.

Other upcoming events include:

• The Jewish Federation of Madison Ally-Building Trip at the Oneida Nation will take place on April 17th - April 19th. This event is open to members of the greater Madison, WI Jewish community. For more information, inquire here.

• The Northside History Day of Action, sponsored by the Wisconsin Humanities Council, will be held on April 26th. Stay tuned for more on this event.

• Elder and student walking tours and dialogue days for the Oneida Nation Boarding School History Project will take place throughout April and May.

For more information on these and future events, head to our Events Page.

Partner Shout Out

This month, we want to celebrate our friend Jessica Harney! Harney is a wonderful social studies teacher at Camden High School in Camden, NY. She has done extensive research on the mid-19th century free Black farming community in Florence, NY called the Florence Farm and Lumber Association. Harney’s work has resulted in state-wide recognition of the historical site and its commemoration with the historical marker pictured above. Harney has been a friend of the project since 2022, and we are presently working with Harney to feature her public history project on the Whose Land? website and podcast.

Visit the project website here

Listen to a podcast about the project here

Thank You for Your Support!

Thank you for subscribing to the Whose Land? newsletter! Your support allows Whose Land? to capture histories, produce stories, and facilitate creative, collaborative problem-solving around the legacies of land dispossession.

Whose Land? is a small non-profit organization dependent on grants and donations to stay afloat. You can help us continue to make an impact by donating to our high school curriculum programs, through which we are currently working with the Oneida Nation High School and the Madison Country Day School. Donate and find out more here.

Want to know how else you can get involved? You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Consider asking your friends to follow us on social media and to subscribe to our newsletter. Don’t forget to let us know about new partnership opportunities here. And if you are interested in making a donation, you can do so here!

Warmly,

The Whose Land? Team