Rabb introduces legislation honoring National Day of Mourning
the National Day of Mourning is a recognition of the dark and shameful past imbedded in colonial history.
Rep. Christopher M. Rabb November 22, 2023 | 12:26 PM
HARRISBURG, Nov. 22 – State Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila., is drafting legislation that would recognize the National Day of Mourning in the commonwealth.
Rabb said the National Day of Mourning is a counter-commemoration to Thanksgiving, which has been celebrated since 1970, and is a recognition of the dark and shameful past imbedded in colonial history. The holiday honors Indigenous ancestors and Native resilience in Pennsylvania and across the nation.
“Since its inception, the Thanksgiving holiday has been a celebration of Pilgrims and other European settlers taking possession of Indigenous lands in North America. Hundreds of years after the ‘first Thanksgiving,’ Indigenous peoples across the nation continue to fight for their rights and spend the Thanksgiving holiday mourning the loss of Indigenous life and culture, in protest against racism and oppression, and in celebration of the resiliency of Native people,” Rabb said. “For too long Pennsylvania has been home to ideas of White cultural superiority, exemplified in the 1763 Conestoga massacre, the 1782 Gnadenhutten massacre, and the inception of federally run Native boarding schools at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which sought to exterminate Native culture and force Whiteness and Americanization on Indigenous children until it finally closed in 1918.”
This resolution would honor the perspective of Native peoples and draw attention to the genocide of their people, theft of their lands and assault on their culture, by recognizing November 25, 2021, as the National Day of Mourning in Pennsylvania.