Michelle Schenandoah uplifts Indigenous voices (Syracuse Trailblazers and Trendsetters)

In March 2022, Michelle Schenandoah (Oneida Nation Wolf Clan) joined women from other Indigenous nations to visit Pope Francis at the Vatican.

She came holding an empty cradleboard, signifying the lives of Native American children lost in residential boarding schools, due to forceful assimilation between the early 1800s to the mid-1900s.

“We had asked the pope to hold on to this cradleboard overnight and to feel the absence of our children,” said Schenandoah, founder of Rematriation. “And then we’d bring the cradleboard back, and that represented us also bringing our children home.”

Schenandoah was a part of the First Nations delegation, one of three, sent to speak with the pope. Due in part to the delegations’ efforts, the pope visited Canada shortly after to apologize. He called what