PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) – Native Americans are gathering for a 50th year in the seaside town where the Pilgrims settled – not to give thanks but to grieve.
United American Indians of New England held its first National Day of Mourning in 1970. Since then, tribes have assembled at noon every Thanksgiving Day on a windswept hill overlooking Plymouth Rock.
On Thursday, they’ll recall what organizers describe as “the genocide of millions of native people, the theft of native lands and the relentless assault on native culture.”
That’s an in-your-feast message, but co-leader Mahtowin Munro says the group is determined to get Americans to look beyond the Thanksgiving myth of European settlers and native people coexisting peacefully.
Next year, Plymouth marks the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ landing in 1620.
