On Tuesday, September 30th, Hartman Green became a site of remembrance, as Franklin & Marshall College marked its inaugural Truth and Reconciliation Day, a community event centered on honoring and remembering the survivors of Native American residential schools, and their families and communities. The day’s events began with a tobacco ceremony and testimony by Indigenous speakers, and concluded with a screening of the Lost Children of Carlisle, a documentary directed by WGAL news anchor Matt Barcaro, along with a panel discussion. The Shadek-Fackenthal Library also hosted a book display.
The ceremony began with a land acknowledgement by Josh Kulak ‘26 and a Ganö:nyök, or Thanksgiving Address, conducted by Jess McPherson. This was followed by a traditional tobacco ceremony, conducted by MaryAnn Robins, to honor those who were subjected to the trauma of forced assimilation at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the state. During the ceremony, F&M community members scattered ceremonial tobacco on orange and white flags arranged around Hartman Green with the names of Native American children who were forced to attend the Carlisle school. Community members then heard testimony from Professor Mary Ann Levine, Boe Harris, Misty Rose Nace, Professor Nick Kroll, and concluding remarks from MaryAnn Robins. Speakers touched upon a range of topics, from the Sixties Scoop, where child welfare authorities in Canada took Native American children for adoption in white families, to the meaning of wearing orange for Truth and Reconciliation Day.
In the evening, organizers hosted a screening of the documentary Lost Children of Carlisle in Stahr Auditorium. The documentary illuminates the heartwrenching stories of thousands of Native American children who suffered at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, PA. The Carlisle school was the federal government’s flagship off-reservation boarding school for Native American children, where the federal government sought to “assimilate” Native American children into mainstream white society. Native American children who attended the schools systematically had their cultures stripped from them, ranging from bans on speaking Native languages and forced name changes. Native American children who attended also confronted the indignity of their treatment and burial in unmarked mass graves. The documentary was produced by local TV station WGAL8, and directed by WGAL8 news anchor Matt Barcaro, who spoke at a panel discussion along with Jess McPherson and MaryAnn Robins after the screening.
F&M Professor Mary Ann Levine organized the event. She described Truth and Reconciliation Day as “one powerful way to reckon with Lancaster’s complicity in upholding Carlisle’s state-sponsored policy of cultural genocide, and remember the 170 Indigenous children from 40 different Native Nations who lived and labored in Lancaster between 1881 and 1918,” and highlighted the event as “a moving testimony to the resilience of those Indigenous children who were torn from their homes and brought to Pennsylvania as well as the persistence of their descendants.”
Truth and Reconciliation Day is also associated with the broader Reckoning with Lancaster project. In its first year, the project documented the connections between F&M, Lancaster County, and the Carlisle Indian School. Professor Levine, who worked on the project, noted that during the 2024-2025 school year, a “team of two faculty co-directors (herself and Professor Eric Hirsch), two community partners (Jess McPherson and MaryAnn Robins), and ten F&M students documented Lancaster’s role in executing the agenda of the Carlisle Indian School Outing Program.” The team found that the “Outing Program immersed Indigenous boys and girls into white families for the summer months to labor on farms, homes, and businesses. Indigenous children were required to speak English, worship in churches on Sunday, and attend public school here in Lancaster if their outings extended beyond the summer. It ensured that the assimilationist agenda of the boarding school was unbroken and that the arrival of summer would not interrupt the school’s mission of divesting children of their languages, cultures, and identities as Indigenous peoples.” Team members of the Reckoning with Lancaster project brought this research to Truth and Reconciliation Day.
The event was widely attended by F&M community members, including students, faculty, and staff members, including myself. I found it to be deeply meaningful and informative. The stories that the speakers shared were heart-rending and illustrated the serious generational trauma that the U.S. and Canadian governments inflicted upon Native American communities, not only through the residential school system but also through other forms of oppression such as the Sixties Scoop. While the event has now concluded, F&M community members can continue to deepen their understanding of the challenges Native American communities faced and the history of Lancaster with F&M’s Reckoning with Lancaster project.
Freshman Milind Gavanker is a Staff Writer. Their email is mgavanka@fandm.edu.