Indian Boarding Schools: Legacies, Impacts, and the Mission of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

This presentation will explore the work of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS), and our organizational pledge to address this legacy through truth-telling efforts like our oral history project, justice through the passage of S.1723: The Bill to Establish a Truth and Healing Commission on U.S. Indian Boarding School Policies, and, perhaps most importantly, healing. This presentation will also explore the federal policies that created Indian boarding schools within the United States and examine the contemporaneous Morrill Act that established land-grab/land-grant universities like Cornell, situating their intertwined legacies of Indigenous assimilation, genocide, and dispossession.

About the Presenter: Annabel Young (she/her) is a Saginaw Chippewa descendant (ajijaak/crane clan) and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 2021, Annabel received her B.A. in English and American Studies with minors in American Indian & Indigenous Studies and Inequality Studies from Cornell. During her time at Cornell, Annabel served as Co-Chair of NAISAC, Managing Editor of Rainy Day Literary Magazine, and worked at Temple of Zeus café. 

Annabel worked as a Communications Coordinator for the Haudenosaunee Nationals before transferring to a role at AIISP as an Administrative Assistant, where she worked primarily in Akwe:kon and with Akwe:kon students. She currently serves as the Digital Content Manager for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS), a nonprofit that seeks truth, justice, and healing for survivors of the Indian boarding school system.

Annabel enjoys beading, reading, and playing video games in her free time, and lives with her bestie and former NAISAC Co-Chair Madison and their dog, Potato.