Annelise Thorn
Miskwa Waya, a native drum group, perform at the beginning of the Indigenous Peoples' Day event in Talley on Monday. The drums set the mood for the night by giving an authentic Native American feel. The performance united the crowd with their steady beat.
The second annual NC State Indigenous Peoples’ Day was held Monday evening with the 1490 Who? in the State Ballroom at Talley Student Union.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a growing national movement to replace the federal holiday of Columbus Day to a celebration of Native people, their culture, their history and their sacrifices to this land.
“We want to change the narrative of ‘discovering America,’” said main speaker Nora Dial-Stanley a senior IT project manager at University of North Carolina-Greensboro and a member of the Lumbee tribe.
Dial-Stanley emphasized the history of Native Americans and atrocities that ensued after Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas. She focused on education of Native and non-Native students to encourage open conversation.
NC State is the first university in North Carolina to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day, according to Brittany Hunt, the assistant director ofNative American Student Affairs in Multicultural Student Affairs.
“We hope that it will give students a greater perspective on events in history that they might not really know the true story about,” Hunt said. “So we hope this will provide some historical accuracy for them as well as just greater knowledge of indigenous people and the struggles that persist until today.”
The event began with a drumming group named Miskwa Waya, which means red wolf in the native languages of Algonquin and Cherokee.
Hunt took a moment to mention the disaster relief taking place across the state which includes native communities such as her home of Robeson County, home to the Lumbee tribe, one of the eight recognized tribes of North Carolina.
Many students voiced their personal stories of being Native American on NC State’s campus. Some of the stories shared included non-Native students wearing Native American regalia as Halloween costumes without cultural understanding of the significance to Native students.
“I have to prove myself to the people around me, in the classroom and outside the classroom,” said Belton Moore, a member of the drum circle and a freshman studying economics. “ … I have to do more than everybody else just because there is that stereotype that ‘oh you’re here just because you got in because you’re Native.’”
Moore would like to see more support for Native students from NC State and celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ day rather than Columbus Day “would bring more awareness.”
“We are really proud as Native students to celebrate this day instead of Columbus Day, and it’s a really great opportunity for us to showcase our culture and our heritage,” Moore said.