Grade school children are made to reenact settler colonialism. Cherokee Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. wrote an op-ed about the time he and other students had to reenact the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run when 50,000 US settlers raced to take 1.9 million acres of Indigenous land. To the kids, it was a “fun race” ¹/
Many land runs occurred in Oklahoma by US gov’t request, like in 1893, taking lands already protected by treaties. While some schools ended their land runs, Hoskin’s op-ed is clear, end all land run celebrations and teach kids the true history. As Chief Hoskin said “tell them the whole story” ²/
