Sacramento City Council meetings could start with recitation honoring indigenous people
In addition to the Pledge of Allegiance, the Sacramento City Council could soon start its meetings with a recitation honoring indigenous people who once lived where City Hall stands.
The city’s Racial Equity Ad Hoc Committee last month recommended the action to the council. The item has not yet been placed on a council agenda.
The committee also voted to start its meetings with the same recitation.
“This is really powerful, and just as we pledge allegiance to the flag before every full meeting, this should be at least equally important and a part of our tradition going forward,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who co-chairs the Racial Equity Ad Hoc Committee, said at the Oct. 26 meeting, according to a blog post by his office.
Sacramento was built on the land of the Nisenan, Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Miwok and Patwin Wintun peoples, the blog post said. While constructing City Hall, crews discovered artifacts and burials from a native village that once stood along the Sacramento and American rivers.
“The reason why (land acknowledgments) are so important is that they are about the respect and recognizing the original people of this land,” Jesus Tarango, chairman of the Wilton Rancheria, said at the committee meeting.
In addition to the recitation, Steinberg said he wants leaders of area tribes to present to the council on their histories, the blog post said. Councilwoman Mai Vang, who co-chairs the committee, agreed.
“While a Land Acknowledgment is inherently a symbolic gesture, as we discussed in the meeting, we intend to pair it with ongoing education about the issues that the indigenous community in and around Sacramento is facing,” Vang tweeted last week.
The proposed recitation would take place before the Pledge of Allegiance at council meetings. It would read:
“Please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento’s Indigenous People and Tribal Lands. To the original people of this land. The Nisenan people, The Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Miwok, Patwin Wintun peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento’s only Federally recognized tribe. May we acknowledge and honor the Native people who came before us and still walk before us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the active practice of acknowledgment and appreciation for Sacramento’s Indigenous People’s history, contributions, and lives. Thank you.”
