19-05-2025
'It's not my walk. It's the souls that survived this'
Kevin AbourezkICT
GENOA, Neb. – It took three years, but Nathan Phillips finally is fulfilling his dream. In the dream, he floated above the earth and looked down upon the many places he's visited in his life, places he had traveled in order to help people in their struggles. After a life spent devoted to social justice, Phillips marveled at his own accomplishments.
Then something slapped in the back of the head, much like an auntie or grandma might do to a child whose head has gotten too big, he said. And then he heard a voice.
'We need you to come home and create these things here. We're waiting for you.'
And so on Monday, May 12, the Omaha elder stood before elders of his tribe and others and talked of his dream and why he had brought them to this painful place – the site of the former U.S. Indian Industrial School at Genoa.
'It's taken me two years from those dreams to now to make it here,' he said. 'It's not my walk. It's the souls that survived this. That's what this is about, those survivors, and those that didn't make it home.'
The Genoa Indian School Walk began Monday at the Genoa U.S. Indian School Foundation Museum. The walk was held as a way to honor those students who attended the school, which opened in 1884 and closed in 1934 and was home to as many as 600 students at its peak. Genoa was but one of more than 400 boarding schools that were designed to assimilate Indigenous people into White culture by separating students from their families and cutting them off from their culture. The walk is expected to end this week.
Today, little remains of the once sprawling 640-acre campus besides the museum.
Phillips' mother, Dorothy Hastings, attended the school in northeast Nebraska and later returned home to Macy. Many others weren't as fortunate, and some died while attending the school.
In 2023, the Nebraska state archaeologist and the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs began searching for a gravesite where they believe as many as 80 students were buried. The former cemetery's location was lost after the school's closure.
At least 86 students are believed to have died at the school, according to newspaper clippings, records and a student's letter. Students usually died of diseases such as tuberculosis and typhoid, but at least one death was blamed on an accidental shooting.
In 2022, the U.S. Interior Department released a report on federal-run boarding schools and then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, traveled to sites where boarding schools were located to gather oral testimonies from survivors and descendants of survivors. On Oct. 25, 2024, then-President Joe Biden delivered an apology to Native people for the failed boarding school era.
One of the most devastating impacts of the boarding schools was its impact on Indigenous languages. In the schools, children were whipped and slapped for speaking their Native languages. Many of those who came out of the schools became convinced that their tribal languages and cultures were impediments to their people's survival in American society. Many decided to not teach their languages to their children and grandchildren, and within just a few years, many Indigenous languages began to fade away as few young people learned those languages and fluent speakers died.
One of those who chose to not teach her son the language was Dorothy Hastings, and so Nathan Phillips never learned to speak Omaha. He has since spent much of his life trying to learn his Native culture and language and teach his daughter what he's learned.
'To see that dramatic loss of language just in that one generation from my grandmother to my father, and how that's impacting me in the way that I learn the language now is something that's really difficult,' his daughter, Alethea Phillips, said.
She spoke about her dad being taken from his family at the age of 5 and placed in a series of foster homes before running away as a teenager. He eventually joined the U.S. Marines. On Jan. 20, 2019, he gained fame after a confrontation with Nicholas Sandmann, a White Catholic student, during competing political rallies before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. In photos and videos that went viral, the teenager, who was taking part in an anti-abortion rally, stood face-to-face before the Omaha elder as Phillips sang and used a Native drum.
Many accused Sandmann of sparking the confrontation and ridiculing Phillips, though later videos and news coverage showed the two met on the steps as Phillips attempted to walk up the steps and Sandmann stood still facing him and smiling. The teenager later received death threats, but later sued many of the news companies who reported on the incident, eventually settling many of the lawsuits.
Nathan Phillips did not speak about the incident during the boarding school memorial walk, instead focusing on the children who attended the Genoa school and their troubled lives afterward.
Alethea Phillips thanked her father for helping his tribe and others who have needed his help with social justice efforts.
'I just want to take this as an opportunity to express how proud I am of my father for doing the work he's done to reconnect with our tribe, with our family and with our community so that I know my culture in a way that he didn't growing up,' she said.
As they departed from the Genoa boarding school museum, Nathan Phillips led the procession of nearly a dozen walkers and three horse riders. The sun was hot and the march snaked slowly through the small village of Genoa before turning onto a gravel road and heading east.
Walkers were mostly silent. The riders laughed. Cars drove slowly past as morning became afternoon, and the riders – all from the Omaha Tribe – ended their leg of the journey and loaded their horses into a trailer. Walkers who had joined from the Omaha Tribe and many who came from Lincoln, Nebraska, also loaded into their cars and drove away.
From there, Nathan and Alethea Phillips continued walking alone.
Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT's free newsletter.
