Oglala Sioux Tribe receives two 19th century headdresses from museum in Barre, Mass.

 

New England Public Media | By Nancy Eve Cohen  November 12, 2024

The Barre, Massachusetts, Museum Association repatriated two 19th century headdresses to the Oglala Sioux, a tribe in South Dakota, on Monday. It was the second repatriation from the museum to the tribe in two years.

One of the bonnets is topped with a feather, painted red — probably earned by a warrior wounded in battle, according to Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Justin Pourier, who drove from South Dakota to pick up the items. He viewed them for the first time this week.

Pourier pointed out eagle talons and porcupine quills, along with porcupine, white-tailed deer and horse hair on the intricately designed warrior's headdress.

The second bonnet, with a train of about 30 eagle feathers, most likely belonged to a chief, Pourier said. He said each feather would have been earned by a chief for performing great deeds to protect family and community.

Pourier said repatriating the headdresses to the Pine Ridge Reservation will have a positive impact on young people.

PHOTO: Nancy Eve Cohen/NEPM

Justin Pourier, the Oglala Sioux tribal historic preservation officer from South Dakota, examines a 19th century warrior's bonnet at the Barre, Massachusetts, Museum Association on November 11, 2024. The headdress is topped with a feather and painted red, symbolizing the person who earned it was wounded in battle.

"It's returning the energy and a prayer back to our kids to ... restore some hope in them. Because the reservation life it's really ... a hard way of living," he said.

According to the U.S. Census, more than half the people on the reservation live below the poverty line.

Pourier sang a chief's song and prayed over the items as they were boxed up at the museum. He said he was very grateful to the people at the museum.

"It really means a lot, from my heart to everybody here, for doing what you guys do," Pourier said.

He gave a brief language lesson in Lakota as he explained he really wanted to show his gratitude.

"'Pilamaya' is 'thank you.' 'Wopila' is a bigger thank-you. If you really want to put an exclamation point on that, you say, 'Wopila tanka.' That's like a real big thank-you," he said.

The museum acquired the headdresses from Frank Root, a traveling showman, in the late 1800s, according to Aaron Miller, a repatriation expert who has consulted with the museum.

Root also gave the museum items that are believed to have been stolen off the bodies of Native people killed by the U.S. Cavalry at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1890. The museum repatriated 130 items from Wounded Knee to the tribe two years ago.

Pourier said when the items from the massacre were shown during two ceremonies to tribal members in South Dakota, it helped people.

"Seeing the grandmas and the kids, the ones that are crying, shows me that the impact is helping them maybe start to process that historical trauma, that intergenerational trauma, that we carry," he said.

All of the items from the Barre Museum are kept at the Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota.

Elizabeth Martin, the clerk of the Barre Museum Association, explained what returning the items this week meant to her.  

"It's a tiny reparation for a great harm — the great harm that's been done to Indigenous people all around the world by what we call civilization," she said.

Pourier said he'd like to have a building on the reservation where young people can come and view the bonnets.

"For our young ones, boys and girls, that are learning to do beadwork and quillwork, that they can look at the designs that our tribes had, our families had, our wives had back then," he said.

After visiting the Barre museum, Pourier planned to visit Harvard University, where he was consulting about the return of human remains of Native people and the hair clippings of Native children who were at boarding schools. He said medicine men from the tribe would join him.

Pourier said he expected to bring back from Harvard a hammer and also a human skull, which would be buried.

https://www.nepm.org/regional-news/2024-11-12/oglala-sioux-tribe-receives-two-19th-century-headdresses-from-museum-in-barre-mass

 

 

Success! Whiteclay Makerspace

 

NEW MURAL - SO NICE!

White Clay Nebraska is a within walking distance and a few miles from Pine Ridge, SD...

Fall update 🍂

Our space has been buzzing with activity! From creating beautiful ribbon skirts to many other artistic projects, our community has been busy expressing their creativity and bringing their unique visions to life. It’s been inspiring to see so many makers come together to collaborate, learn, and share their talents.

We’re also thrilled to announce that the mural outside our space is nearing completion! This vibrant piece, which has been in the works for some time, truly reflects the spirit of our creative community. We can’t wait to share the final results with you!

Painted imitation Eagle feather

Regular price

$35.00

Thank you for being such an integral part of this journey. Your support allows us to continue providing a welcoming space for artists and makers of all kinds, and we’re excited for what’s still to come!

- Whiteclay Makerspace

Welcome to the Whiteclay Makerspace online store: offering Lakota creators' arts and crafts made on the Pine Ridge Reservation and at our facility in Whiteclay. Learn more by clicking here - whiteclaymakerspace.com

 SHOP : https://whiteclay-makerspace.myshopify.com/collections/all

Povery Porn? Exploiting trauma for clicks

 

Tommy G

October 8, 2024

A portrayal of the Pine Ridge Reservation by a YouTube personality with more than 2,000,000 subscribers is drawing criticism for focusing on stereotypes of poverty and substance abuse. Tommy McGee, who goes by the name “Tommy G”, makes a name for himself producing what he calls “documentaries” that depict extremes of American life. His video of the Oglala Lakota reservation, called “The poorest place in America”, has more than 3,000,000 views. He paints a picture primarily of meth and alcohol addiction, unemployment, squalor, and crime. Pine Ridge residents, including one Native youth organization, say the video crosses the line into “poverty porn.” We’ll explore current approaches for responsible media representation of Native people.

LINK: https://www.nativeamericacalling.com/tuesday-october-8-2024-exploiting-trauma-for-clicks/

They are finally HOME

Oglala children, Native boarding school victims laid to rest in weekend-long ceremony

The remains of three Oglala Lakota students who died while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the 1890s were returned home this month and reburied in their South Dakota homelands

The casket of Samuel Flying Horse is carried out of a ceremonial tipi by Tayton Kills Small, left, and Rodney Rouillard at Pahin Sinte Owayawa School in Porcupine, S.D., on Sept. 21, 2024, during a memorial service that was held for Fannie Charging Shield , Samuel Flying Horse, and James Cornman.

 By Charles Fox / ICT News |

September 29, 2024

 This article is free to access.

OGLALA, S.D. — As darkness descended, the procession to rebury Samuel Flying Horse (also known as Tasunke Kinyela) made its way along a dirt road to the Brave Blue Horse Family Cemetery outside of Oglala, S.D., on Sunday, Sept. 22. The memorial service and community gathering had run behind schedule and now the blue skies that marked the day and golden light of the setting sun were gone.

Corrine Brave looks over the casket of her relative, Samuel Flying Horse, in Oglala, S.D., on Sept. 22, 2024. Samuel was one of three Oglala Lakota students disinterred and returned to their homeland from the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery in Pennsylvania.

Charles Fox / Special to ICT

Samuel died as a student at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and waited 131 years to be disinterred and returned to his homeland. Those gathered were not about to let darkness make him wait longer.

Approximately 20 vehicles in an open field encircled and directed their headlights on the small fenced-in cemetery. The pounding of the drum, the singing of songs, and prayers drifted up as pinpoints of starlight began dotting the night sky. Eventually, a group of men lowered Samuel’s casket, covered in a star quilt and a bouquet of red roses, into the ground. Samuel was now part of the land he had left behind in 1891.

Along with Fannie Charging Shield and James Cornman, Sameul was reburied on the Pine Ridge Reservation this past weekend. Fannie and James were buried at St. Julius Cemetery in Porcupine on Saturday, following a community gathering at the Pahin Sinte Owayawa School to celebrate the homecoming of the three Oglala Lakota students. Samuel was reburied the following day.

They died in the early 1890s as students of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first federally run, off-reservation boarding school for Native Americans. Approximately 8,000 Native American students attended the school in a misguided attempt at forceful assimilation into white civilization by cutting all links in their cultural chain. It became the model for more than 400 schools across 37 states and territories in the U.S. and provided a blueprint for Canada’s notorious residential school system.

The three students were among the estimated 232 students who died during its years of operation from 1879 to 1918. Each passed from tuberculosis, then called consumption. It was the leading cause of death at the Carlisle school.

The dream

It wasn’t until the three students came home to Pine Ridge a week earlier that Corrine Brave, 70, checked her family tree and realized she was a relative of Samuel Flying Horse, who school records indicate was an orphan. With some trepidation, she stepped forward to claim Samuel and offer a burial site.

Vee Janis, left, a relative of Fannie Charging Shield, and Corrine Brave, a relative of Samuel Flying Horse, hug during a memorial service at Pahin Sinte Owayawa School in Porcupine, S.D., on Sept. 21, 2024. The remains of Fannie Charging Shield, Samuel Flying Horse, and James Cornman were returned from the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery in Pennsylvania and reburied on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota.

Charles Fox / Special to ICT

As the mourners gathered, illuminated by the headlights of the surrounding cars, Corrine Brave told the gathering the story of a dream she had had the night before. A figure of a man descended a steep series of steps toward her. He kept slipping and falling, appearing to be legless. She could not make out the features of his face, but his voice was distinct. As he got closer, he said “wopilayelo” (the male version of thank you) to her four times. She felt the man was Samuel.

The dream woke her.

“I sat straight up, looked around thinking I was hearing things,” she recalled. “Then I said to myself, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ … So that's when I knew I was doing the right thing for my relative,” Brave said.

“It was for love – the love of my relatives, the love of my family. … I just really felt that in my heart that there was a relationship between us.” She began to think of herself in the role of an auntie.

He was buried beside his namesake, her late brother Samuel Brave.

The 'peaceful war'

The weekend’s ceremonies started Saturday morning when a convoy of nearly 25 cars made their way from Pine Ridge through the rolling hills. It traveled along the Chief Bigfoot Highway past the Wounded Knee Massacre site. It was a morning to celebrate and memorialize the three students.

The movement to repatriate the remains of students from the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery in Pennsylvania began in 2015, when the Sicangu Youth Council of the Rosebud Sioux stopped at Carlisle following an event in Washington, D.C. It began with the simple question “Why aren’t we doing something to bring them home?” Justin Pourier, right, blesses former youth council members (left to right): Chris Eagle Bear, Jayden Whiting, and Rachel Janis on Sept. 21, 2024, at Pahin Sinte Owayawa School in Porcupine, S.D. where a memorial service was held for Fannie Charging Shield , Samuel Flying Horse, and James Cornman.

Charles Fox / Special to ICT

Fannie, James and Samuel left home for Carlisle in the name of education. The students did not realize they were taking part in a “peaceful war,” one fought in the classroom using education as the ammunition to force assimilation and cultural destruction. Books and blackboards were deemed a cheaper solution to “the Indian problem” than bullets and battlefields.

The school, located on a vacant U.S. Army base in Pennsylvania, was run in a military fashion. It was only fitting that upon their return they be memorialized in a school, Pahin Sinte Owayawa, in Porcupine, S.D.

It was the graduation day they had not lived to see.

The three caskets were carried into the school gym and placed in ceremonial tipis. About 100 community members and students sat in folding chairs and bleachers. They gathered to gain knowledge from all the students had endured over a century before by traversing 1,500 miles across the country to a school that had all intentions of erasing their culture. The trio of students and their experiences had become the teachers. Courage, perseverance and overcoming adversity were their subjects. It was their time to be honored.

“They were innocent, and they were raised right. And when they went to Carlisle, their parents got them ready,” Pat Janis, a medicine man and relative of Fannie Charging Shield, had said the previous day in an interview with ICT. “They said, ‘This is a different way than we live, but you got to go forward. You got to learn these things. This is the way we're going to live now. So you got to have strength. You got to have courage and do your best. Get educated. You're going to help us.’ So they prepared them. Although those students didn't want to go there … they took it as a warrior. … They said, ‘I'm scared. I don't know what this is, but my parents believe in me, and they want me to move forward into this way of life. I'm not selling out our people.’”

A question becomes a movement

The movement to repatriate the remains of students from the Carlisle cemetery began in 2015, when the Sicangu Youth Council of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe stopped at Carlisle following an youth event in Washington, D.C. It began with the simple question no one had thought to ask in earnest before, “Why aren’t we doing something to bring them home?”

A group of Lakota motorcyclists from Washington state lead a convey of approximately 25 vehicles along Chief Big Foot Highway (Highway 27) on their way to Porcupine, S.D., on Sept. 21, 2024. The convey was part of a memorial services for Fannie Charging Shield , Samuel Flying Horse, and James Cornman, whose remains had been returned from the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery in Pennsylvania.

Charles Fox / Special to ICT

The question ultimately led the Office of Army Cemeteries to begin the process of returning students’ remains to their tribal communities. Since 2017, the Office of Army Cemeteries – which oversees the Carlisle cemetery along with other military gravesites, including Arlington Cemetery – has disinterred and returned the remains of 32 children from the school’s cemetery. Still, 146 students have yet to be returned to their tribes prior to this fall’s disinterment.

Three former members of the Sicangu Youth Council, Chris Eagle Bear, Rachel Janis, and Jayden Whiting, were recognized and honored at the memorial service for initiating the return of Carlisle students.

“You know, 10 years later, I didn't expect to be where we are today. Because at the end of the day, we were just kids with a curious question,” said Chris Eagle Bear, 26, who is currently a Rosebud Sioux Tribe councilman.

“My generation is the first generation that is not a part of the boarding school era. And with that, we're able to share what we feel. We're able to speak on matters that a lot of our people couldn't speak on for a long time because they were scared,” Eagle Bear said. “The older generation started sharing their stories, started sharing things that they've never shared before with anyone.”

Janis called the relatives of the three students forward for a ceremony of healing and compassion near the end of the event.

“We are still in mourning over it. It's a good thing that we can get over it now, because sometimes we walk around with sadness and mourning, and we don't even know we're in mourning ’til we get a physical sickness like diabetes,” he said.

For Justin Pourier, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Historical Preservation Officer, who had gone to Carlisle and accompanied them on their homecoming, there was the satisfaction of a mission accomplished. He often thought of all they had endured and felt a love and an attachment to the three students.

Michael Littlevoice, a Ponca and Omaha man from Ponca City, Okla., plays the flute in front of the casket of Samuel Flying Horse. Littlevoice felt compelled to attend the event to help the community heal and celebrate. The words of his song are: “After all of these years, I'm home, I'm home. I'm home after all these years.”

Charles Fox / Special to ICT

Yet, there was so much more work to be done. Pourier thought about other Oglala Lakota children who remain buried at other boarding school cemeteries and artifacts in the possession of museums and academic institutions. He spoke at the event of the Oglala Lakota students buried at the White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker-run, Native American residential school in Wabash, Ind.,which was initially established by Quaker missionaries in 1862. And he talked about his hope to continue to have artifacts, such as war bonnets and moccasins with beautiful beadwork, returned from various museums to a place where Native youths could draw inspiration and pride in the beautiful craftsmanship.

“If they can see all these things, it reestablishes their pride and their sense of knowing who they are. I’m hoping it brings healing, and helps our children grow back into the strong nation we used to be,” Pourier had said while in Carlisle. “We can't afford to send a busload of kids all the way to New York to look at something that should be back home.”

Mourners bury the remains of Samuel Flying Horse — a Lakota student who died while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1893 — near Oglala, S.D., on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024.

Charles Fox / Special to ICT

As the morning of speeches and prayers came to a close Saturday, Michael Littlevoice, a Ponca and Omaha man living in Ponca City, Okla., asked permission to address the crowd. He had attended Chilocco Indian Agricultural School with Orville Flying Horse of McIntosh, S.D., in the early 1970s. He felt compelled to attend the two events to help the community heal and celebrate.

He performed an original composition on his flute inspired by the occasion. The haunting yet peaceful music echoed through the room, setting the mood for the reburial that would follow shortly, the ending to the long and unfortunate journey home of Fannie, Samuel and James. While he performed as an instrumental, he informed those gathered of the words:

“After all of these years, I'm home, I'm home. I'm home after all these years.”

This story was originally published on ICTNews.org.

https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/south-dakota/oglala-children-native-boarding-school-victims-laid-to-rest-in-weekend-long-ceremony

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Visiting Lakota Medicine Man (rare opportunity) 🇺🇸

Lakota Elder Wowitan Uha Mani Speaks To Peter Santenello: "I'm a Lakota!"

Lakota Elder Wowitan Uha Mani (Christian name: David Swallow, Jr.) spoke with filmmaker Peter Santenello 

 This man may live in the middle of the Reservation but he has a better understanding of what is going on in the world than most people living in the cities.

Art replaces alcohol at the Whiteclay Makerspace

I have been to White Clay many times.  My relatives there are artists.  This is the future! FINALLY!  GOOD NEWS... Trace

🪶Art Replaces Alcohol 🪶

NEBRASKA - We are sure you are familiar with the work that is happening at the Whiteclay Makerspace, but do you know the entire origin story? Would you believe us if we told you that the Makerspace is located in an old liquor store?

You may not know the beginnings, and we would love to share them in the video. We are always humbled by the opportunity to be part in a transformation that has impacted so many!

SHOP 👉   https://whiteclay-makerspace.myshopify.com/

You continue to play a vital role in helping us build a place for artists to thrive and support their families. From this whole community we just want to send a huge THANK YOU! Summer brings increased tourist traffic, activity, and needs as we support Oglala Lakota artists and crafters. Please consider what gift you could make through the PayPal giving link at the button below, or mail check to: Whiteclay Makerspace, PO Box 667, Henderson, NE 68371. Click play on the video and learn a little bit about how this space came to be!

In a historic moment, two Sioux tribes receive federal funds to build tribal foster care

The Lakota People's Law Project worked in association with A Positive Tomorrow and the Sioux Tribes of South Dakota to bring Indian tribes closer to running their own independently run foster care systems.

Bryan Brewer, Tribal Council Chairman, Oglala Sioux (Pine Ridge)

“This is a significant victory for the Lakota people and for indigenous people across the United States and around the globe.” Chase Iron Eyes

Rapid City, South Dakota (PRWEB) October 06, 2014

Two tribes of the Lakota Sioux Nation in South Dakota Indian Country have been awarded planning grants by the Department of Health and Human Services, marking a historic moment in the ongoing effort to stop the illegal State seizure of Lakota children by creating an independent tribal-run family services program administered for Lakota, by Lakota.
Both the Oglala Sioux Tribe at Pine Ridge and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe were awarded $300,000 planning grants by the United States Health and Human Services Agency, according to an HHS announcement released Friday, Oct. 3.
“This is a tremendous development,” said Oglala Sioux President Bryan Brewer. “ Credit goes first to all the tribes for our hard work, and second to A Positive Tomorrow, whose expertise in grant applications of this specific kind has been indispensable to this achievement, and finally to the Lakota People’s Law Project who has worked for years with us for this structural change.”
“Our children are sacred, and they are our future,” said Chase Iron Eyes, spokesperson from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and attorney for the Lakota People’s Law Project. “This is a significant victory for the Lakota people and for indigenous people across the United States and around the globe, and it marks the beginning of a major effort to build our tribal capacity so we can take care of our children and families.”
Jesse Taken Alive, former Chairman of Standing Rock said, “ We will be working on our constitutions, our customary laws and traditions, our Court system, our codes, our available buildings, our kinship and foster care networks, our educational access to Masters Degrees, our creation of these permanent jobs, and our trauma and parent training based on our own values. This effort will strengthen our families and build tribal capacity across our structures.”
Yvonne Ito of A Positive Tomorrow, who worked diligently with seven tribes to ensure the applications were high grade, joined Iron Eyes in expressing a sense of triumph while cautioning that much work remains. “We are pleased that these two tribes will embark on a journey of sovereignty, and we will continue to fight for the other five Sioux tribes to receive their planning grants as well.”
The Department of Health and Human Services gives five tribal planning grants per year, and this year they gave two in South Dakota, two in Alaska, and one in Arizona.
“I am committed to the tribes and to a working alliance with the Lakota People’s Law Project,” said Ito. “If we all continue to work together, all Lakota tribes will rise in this historic project with the People of the Seven Council Fires. There is a lot of work to be done and this latest benchmark only strengthens our resolve and determination to make sure it gets done successfully.”
The federal grants of $300,000 are distributed to each tribe by mid-October and will allow Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and the Oglala Sioux Tribe at Pine Ridge, to begin planning and building capacity with a final goal of establishing foster care systems that will be run by the tribes independent of the state. Collective efforts will continue this month to achieve planning grants for the Yankton, Crow Creek, Cheyenne River, Flandreau, and Lower Brule Sioux tribes.

“It is crucial that we wrest control of our children’s future away from members of the state of South Dakota, who have proven over and over again that they do not have the best interests of our children and families at heart,” said Cheyenne River Grandmother Madonna Thunder Hawk. “Our children are not cash cows for federal money coming into the state economy, they are sacred and precious beings, our most valuable resource.”

“The people best situated to care for our children are our own families and extended family network, which we call Tiospaye,” said Phyllis Young, Standing Rock Councilwoman and important initiator of the historic BIA Summit on Lakota Foster Care in 2013. “We have taken good care of our children for thousands of years. We have to heal from the trauma of the past 130 years and begin to build a positive future for our people.”
The Lakota People’s Law Project (LPLP) has been working on foster care issues relative to the Native American children of South Dakota since 2005, partnering with tribes and leaders in South Dakota.
The tribes have been prompted to run their own foster care institutions after a 2011 report by National Public Radio asserted that the South Dakota Department of Social Services repeatedly and persistently violates the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, and receives roughly $65 million per year in federal money in the process. The federal money infusions for the South Dakota foster care program were detailed in Who’s Watching the Watchdog, a 2013 report by the Lakota People’s Law Project.
An average of 742 Native American children are removed from their homes in South Dakota on an annual basis, according to the United States Children' Bureau's "Child Welfare Outcomes: Reports to Congress." When controlling for the factor of poverty, South Dakota still ranks third in the nation for the highest number of children taken into custody by the Department of Social Services, according to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform's "2010 NCCPR Rate of Removal Index." This is true even though the state has a total population of only 844,000.
While Native American children constitute 13.5 percent of the child population in South Dakota, they comprise 54 percent of the youth foster care population, according to the Child Welfare Outcomes compiled by the Children's Bureau. South Dakota has allegedly continued to ignore stipulations in ICWA that mandate placement of Native American children in Native American homes, placing about 87 percent of Native children in non-Native homes, according to data provided by the South Dakota DSS to LPLP in an email in 2011.

“The state of South Dakota operates under a perverse incentive, where they actually stand to gain additional federal funding for their social services programs by taking Native kids from their homes and placing them in state-run foster care services,” said Sara Nelson of the Lakota People’s Law Project. “Most of the group homes are now psychiatric institutions, because they can charge the federal government three times as much per day.”

This crisis prompted LPLP, after much grassroots research and legal analysis, to begin advocating a solution that entailed the tribes running their own independent and autonomous family services programs that include foster care homes.
“We were happy to see that Governor Daugaard has now endorsed the shifting of the federal money from the State to the tribes for foster care,” said Yankton Sioux Tribe Officer Sam Sully, referring to an announcement in the Argus Leader last year. “We are pushing forward to ask three Washington, D.C. agencies for our planning grant too.”
The two announced grants will arrive in mid October when the tribes will proceed immediately to hire qualified Planning Coordinators.
The planning grant applications were submitted for funding under the terms of the 2008 Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, commonly referred to as the Baucus Act. The law introduced major changes to the Social Security Act, primarily in Section IV-E, regarding foster care and adoptions assistance payments to the states.
The Planning Grant program under the Baucus Act can award individual planning grants up to $300,000 to American Indian tribes and has a total annual budget of $3 million. Usually $1.5 million in grants, or 5 grants, are given each year. According to the Tribal Directory of the Bureau of Indian Affairs there are 566 federally recognized tribes. At this rate, the process could take upwards of 100 years.
In total, eight out of the nine Lakota tribes in South Dakota have already received or applied for the grants. Five are asking for further review in Washington, D.C.

The Lakota People’s Law Project has been partnering with tribes and leaders in South Dakota since 2005 from its offices in Rapid City, SD and Santa Cruz, CA. LPLP’s activities have included funding and supporting Native experts to provide technical assistance to the tribes on family and child welfare issues. The project combines public interest law, investigation, research, education, and organizing into a unique model for advocacy and social reform.

The Lakota People's Law Project is sponsored by the non-profit Romero Institute based in Santa Cruz, California. The Institute is named after slain human rights advocate Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. The Institute seeks to identify and dismantle structural sources of injustice and threats to the survival of our human family.