Episcopalians honor Indigenous boarding school victims, survivors on Orange Shirt Day

Students at St. Mary’s, an Episcopal school for Indigenous girls on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, are seen in an undated photo from the G.E.E. Lindquist Papers, held by the Burke Library Archives at Union Theological Seminary.

[Episcopal News Service] Sept. 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, an annual observance to bring awareness to Indigenous boarding schools and to honor victims, survivors and their families. Episcopal dioceses and institutions are observing the day with educational events, including lectures, panel discussions with survivors and documentary screenings.

The day of remembrance isn’t an official churchwide observance, but The Episcopal Church’s Truth, Justice & Healing Commission on Native Boarding Schools is working on a resolution to make it so. Some dioceses, including Maine and Northern Michigan, have been observing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation for several years.

A poster advertises the National Day of Remembrance – Engaging in the Work of Repair presentation and panel discussion taking place Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern via Zoom. Episcopal Divinity School, the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and the Diocese of Arizona are co-hosting the livestreamed event. Photo: Episcopal Divinity School

Several members of the Truth, Justice & Healing Commission on Native Boarding Schools will participate in events. Episcopal Divinity School, the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and the Diocese of Arizona will co-host a livestreamed presentation and panel discussion on Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern via Zoom. Pearl Chanar, an Athabaskan tribal member and a boarding school survivor from Alaska who serves as the commission’s co-chair, will be one of the panelists. Like many Native Alaskans, Chanar was sent out of state, hundreds of miles away from home, to attend a boarding school.

“For me as a boarding school survivor and being on this commission, I’m driven by the fact that something has to be done for these children,” Chanar told Episcopal News Service.

Joining Chanar in the panel discussion are Vance Blackfox, a Cherokee theologian who serves as the Indigenous Theological Circle’s ecumenical and tribal relations director and is a member of the boarding schools commission, and the Rev. Allen Buck, a Cherokee elder who serves as director of the United Methodist Church’s Circle of Indigenous Ministries in the Northwest. They will discuss how churches and communities are working towards truth-telling and repair, and how Christians can participate.

The Rev. Debbie Royals, former canon for the Diocese of Arizona’s Native American Ministry and a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, will give a presentation before the panel discussion.

Click here to register for the presentation and panel discussion.

In Old Town, Maine, Episcopalians will participate in the Penobscot Nation’s public Every Child Matters Orange Shirt Day Walk the evening of Sept. 30.

A public Remembrance Walk in Sonora, California, will begin in front of St. James’ Episcopal Church the evening of Sept. 30. The walk will end with singing and drumming.

During the afternoon and evening of Sept. 30 throughout the Diocese of Arizona, Episcopalians will attend a screening of a documentary on the yearlong Listening & Healing pilgrimage the diocese’s Council for Native American Ministry hosted in 2024. During the pilgrimage, which was split into multiple events, pilgrims listened to survivors, families, researchers and Indigenous leaders share their stories. The pilgrimage ended with a healing ceremony led by Royals.

Arizona had the second-highest number of Indigenous boarding schools in the country, behind Oklahoma. None of the identified 47 schools were Episcopal-operated, but the Diocese of Arizona is still conducting its own archival investigation to make sure none were overlooked.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation began in 2013 in Williams Lake, British Columbia, Canada, as Orange Shirt Day with the tagline “Every Child Matters.” The inspiration came from Phyllis Jack Webstad, a Secwépemc survivor who shared her story of attending the St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School in 1973, when she was 6 years old. On the first day of school, Webstad was stripped of her clothes, including the new orange shirt her grandmother bought for her. The school never gave it back to her.

“The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing,” Webstad said in her story on the Orange Shirt Society’s website. “All of us little children were crying, and no one cared.”

The U.S. Indigenous boarding school system was intended to assimilate the children into white society at the expense of their Native American identities, languages and cultures. Indigenous students endured a wide spectrum of experiences at the boarding schools, dating as far back as 1819.

Some were forced to attend the schools, run by the federal government and Christian denominations, while other families voluntarily sent their children to receive what often was the only education available. In some cases, they faced a nightmare of mistreatment, abuse and even death far from home. Other boarding school survivors recall no physical abuse but still experienced trauma from the family separation and deprivation of their culture and identity.

The Episcopal Church has so far confirmed its involvement in at least 34 of the more than 500 known boarding schools in the United States. Over the last two years, the Truth, Justice & Healing Commission on Native Boarding Schools, has identified 25 additional schools by researching diocesan records, Miskopwaaganikwa Leora Tadgerson, commission co-chair and a member of the Bay Mills Indian Community, told ENS. The commission formed in 2025 from two working groups that were established in 2022 by General Convention and Executive Council.

Tadgerson, who also serves as the Diocese of Northern Michigan’s director of reparations and justice, anticipates that researching the full extent of The Episcopal Church’s complicity and gathering testaments from survivors will take several more years.

“There are still so many dioceses that we have to work with, and so many tribes. This work is just the beginning,” Tadgerson told ENS.

Observing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is a “good starting point” for non-Indigenous people to learn about the boarding schools’ lasting effects, Tadgerson said.

“Beyond larger events like Orange Shirt Day, we definitely encourage folks to get involved with the local tribal initiatives,” she said. “Take the time to learn how the Indian boarding school experience was localized. That’s also a good starting point.”

–Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.