Get informed, straight from the sources on cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word on the Nations Capital to wherever you are and continue the matters that most. This is what democracy looks like. Our third and finalil panel. We are honored to have a moderator, executivenv director was born in denver and found herself back or she has worked his worked for several years with the National Civic lead and a founding board member for political action. Cap he helped us take off april 26, 2021 and you can see her in action but we are delighted to have her today and she will moderate. I believe its afternoon already, good afternoon everyone. Im excited to be part of this panel, a little shift and what we are doing and i hope you will find it fascinating and some of the challenging questions about where we go from here as we engage in exploration of history of phenomenal visuals and ill start with a quick story how i came to this the first place. I hope you dont mind but we have inspired to participate in the anniversary celebration and at the same time we had Community Gatherings where the word around the community that olmstead wasnt as great as they said they were involved in these endeavors and we shouldnt be celebrating them. I raised the issue because it disturbed me. I came to understanding parks and traditionon like everyone ee with a sense of awe and admiration and i was chloroplast these were true and with all rumors, theres always a kernel of truth. The great response, thank you for engaging in this conversation. I dont want to give you the answers, but talk about what it means to individuals from multicultural backgrounds today as we move forward. I have accepted this week on the future and how we learn from the past, from the history to guide us in this endeavor and for history is what underscored when the olmsteads had an influence on early developments was a time when the ku klux klan had complete control of our city so in some ways it was killed by association but represented in denver the movement was the Founding Fathers and the prerogatives of the notion of most of thet park was not that but the people around the country doing their own version were representatives of this influence so we have this mixed bag and the founding of our country, the complexities and paradox of our history and history of this design is parks and ideas is equally complex especially when you think about relationships the real focus is on the people do not give me any e technology. [laughter]pl all the people for all is a mixed bag as we move forward signing and creating park systems s and at the local level who is involved. We have a panel of visuals were going to reflect and powerful ways about where we go into the future. Lets talk about the freedom the parks would create for us. One is that some people dont feel and one of the primary goals of my Department Today still is getting young africanamerican youngo latino individuals into our parks. We talk about feeling welcome and having a conversation about changing that idea. Local assumes it belongs to someone else and youre welcome to a space thats not yours part of that challenge is individuals will talk about that notion, who we and perks is remotely and thinking different about ideas about those relationships and exploring where we have been in people with folks who like me in wonder how we got in as though this is something we should naturally be engaging so we are going to address them hard questions that hopefully will help us because we dont want to be doomed to repeat history, want to build on what we can learn so tell me about the people sharing these ideas, im going to introduce all of them. First, philip is be author of indian country, native american and National Parks and is going to bring a very personal perspective having lived and worked and taught at the Rosebud Indian Reservation and really explore this idea of National Parks from the perspective of individuals lived on this land and are now in places designated to that and one of those paradoxes so we look forward to hearing this perspective and i asked him last night, currently working on the impact boarding schools so legacies of oppression, of our past in the same time model new ideas about the National Park systems. Second, we have select, and associate professor at the university of northern texas and priscilla is going to turn this conversation sent down and she gave us a clue earlier today about challenging the basic premises about parks and National Parks and access notion of ownership. National park ranger and educator, extraordinary to plaintiff in yosemite National Park and refuses to go away. [laughter] also author of glory land the most interesting perspective about National Parks and dilemmas many of us in this country face when we celebrate on one hand this marvelous invention of beautiful places get prices some of his pay to even exist so when is a book of glory land but hes being a personal perspective about what it means that he is now the steward and gods rest of us in that stewardship and it is about that notion. We pick up the legacies and we ntstart every meeting with whate call land acknowledgment. It is this acknowledgment of our history but moving forward, i think we will hear from these folksou today what we should she our future stewardship as we move forward. Thanks to the National Association for inviting me to talk today. I guess this is my time. Im not going to be singing but i am going to tell a story. Ill have pictures so much ask you to follow the story in your minds eye because it unravels over a substantial period of time. The title of the story is badlands, National Park service. Landscape is a sculpted view, framed perspective. It is inke the hands of people like olmstead senior and junior, groomed with exceptional pay we tend to think of landscapes as consisting of a fixed image focused time and space. , over there, isnt that a beautiful view . Some landscapes can only be understood after the passage of decades, perhaps centuries. National park landscapes have been pulled from the land almost like sound monuments, forces that are partly geological and environmental, partly political and more often than we like to think, the cutting edge of cultural conflicts. You ever visit the badlands, you wont soon forget. Formations that have been described wherever there is a Tourist Destination is an ecosystem, one trapper in the 1880s called them and i quote, the greatest game country i ever saw. Farmers, ranchers and tribal people in the federal government. In part of the control programs. Elk and deer were killed and chased in the region but rest and within a century and equipment of the desert. The government had visionssi of something bigger and better. A federal report from 19903 years after the parks there was organic act noted that stalking the badlands and indian force will be using all the badlands and will be an option enthusiastically sought. Its worth thinking what the writing meant. The asset, americas perks were envisioned to compete with grand monument of europe. Virtually legislation offered public playground and wonderland stewardship and ownership would be held by the american people. Easiest way to observe was to show they were unfit for economic development. Lands in question were to be incomparable explorations but also worthless from making money through private investment. I it was the western railroad and only then bringing visitors to the newly created parks. Yellowstone and yosemite edit scattered across the west in the formal indian reservation. Reservations were regarded asly economically marginal or worthless in the interior department. As a result, indian land was obvious candidate for inclusion in the parks because they were regarded as unproductive and under the hand of federal. Badlands of south dakota were part of the great reservation established four yearse before yellowstone National Park was created. They became part of the public domain. Ll the entity called wonderland National Park. The paradox about the National ParkService Worth noting, its a conservation charged with a mission to expand. Entrusted with protecting public land, it aims to acquire it through donation, purchase, exchange and Eminent Domain. Expense of an agenda is likely to create hard feelings sooner or later. They are naturalal but humanly shaped. Were tours with the scent of rain having prehistoric past. The human beings to 1 degree or another for generations. The designation in the national acreso a maximum of 50000 in seven years later in the midst of the Great Depression congress authorized monument boundaries to extend to five times the original area including the edition of declared sub marginal or unproductive. Gh in 1942, washington, the War Department announced plans to confiscate a chunk of reservation adjacent too the monument. 43 miles long by 12 miles. Fortythree by 12, roughly 350,000 acres to create the range. It was to be used for target practice. The area is worthless land. Owned by the government for the pine ridge indians and a longterm lease or small amount. There were 125 indian families, land. Not to mention the schools, churches senators. Scores of has land or who used it to cytosine for cash income. The range and was equal in size hato western county about half e size of rhode island. 1 an acre for you to please land within this area in the going rate according to the interior secretary was between seven and a half to 25 and they were offered 1 cent. Some of the land was owned outright who were given 30 days notice to vacate their homes. Through Eminent Domain they were paid an average of 2. 85 an acre, not much more than the going rate. Houses and barns and they were confiscated. City did they suspect gathering upup and be is a good one day large part of the range would become part of the badlands National Park, a place where people would come from thousands of miles away to camp, hike low land and go to the police. Twenty years and two wars asked and there was surplus, 300,000 acres in 1963. They discussed local poverty might be addressed through road improvement. A motel, picnic center, all in reservation. Communities. Raised eyebrows in area where adequate housing was barely obtainable. Hand over control of any treaty land outside Authority Bureau and park service in the interior department joined forces to devise a plan that would make it a tourist attraction. The National Monument was a south unit consisting of ones 30,000 acres of the gunnery range and additional land more than doubling. 76000 would revert and provide easement with the administration. The park service wouldnt have to buy the land of all, it would only need to manage it with the tribe. Again, the tribe resisted but they wouldnt make the exchange on interior affairs, remaining range will be subject to disposal. Tribal council didnt agree, there was no hope of these plans once control. Ninetyfour 68 proving the annexation a way to pressure the tribe and establish badlands National Park. And they were still growing. It took several years before the tribal council. In 19762 years later and more in 78. So it was at the south unit created and the north unit was in the olmstead and hopefully in this area. It was more sobering and ashamed for allowing the park service under the reservation, a returned land and forced to surrender. Time hasnt been kind since i reported on the badlands in the National Parks 20 years ago, washington has done little to live up to its promise. Training of personnel has been haphazard, not nonexistent. The old plumbing rangeland is still unfinished. Studies to assess whether bison should be introduced have been killed. Signage and infrastructure pushed traffic away from the reservation, small Visitor Center in trailer is all that visitors will find. The tribe has been denied for suche concession and while it is true people were promised all jobs, they have never been more than a handshake any given time. Traditional clauses of the memorandum carefully crafted to the advantage of congressional treaties a century before. Finally the tribebe has politicl problems of its own and they prevented this counsel from endorsing the idea making a south unit National Park. Dream of many administered independently. Many of the reservation acknowledged the need of reform without acculturation, the scenic byways connecting badlands to the hills and spring posterity is for now, a hollow wish. Still such organization as underbelly Development Corporation we are going to break away briefly from this American History tv to keep our 40 year commitment to covering congress. We take you to the floor of the u. S. Senate where law makers are holding what we believe will be a brief session today. The presiding officer the senate will come to order. The presiding officer the senate will come to order. The parliamentarian will read a communication to the senate. The parliamentarian washington d. C. , august 4, 2023. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable peter welch, a senator from the state of the vermont, to perform the duties of the chair. Signed patty murray, president pro tempore. The presiding officer under the previous order, the Senate Stands adjourned until 10 00 a. M. Tuesday you august 8, the u. S. Senate is not in session for the month of august and a portion of september 2 were to work in their home states. Moderators will be back for legislative business tuesday september 5th. We will bring you live coverage here on cspan2. From new mexico, and who all became environmental scientists, three of them were inducted to the national science, what is it, National Academy of science, thank you. How cann i get that wrong women here in d. C. . National academy of sciences and four of them were professors at research universities. So this is to meet history of the Mexican American leading family of american conservation thats not a hidden story but certainly not very well known here so i been working on that but im approaching it through a kind of braided narrative style that is somewhat minimalistic and a story about my mother and about a fellow leopold and some about myself so what im going to share with you today is like a brief and very condensed except of part of that manuscript thats in process. Ev. I have been putting myself through a process of learning from native and indigenous scholars, writing on the topics of Climate Change. Extractivism settler colonialism and environmental issues. By the summer of 2021, i felt both a personal and intellectual investment in finding my place as a chicana feminist in solidarity with indigenous led actions to protect the earth. So when an opportunity came to join a water walk, i went for a water walk is an extended ajiboye led tradition honoring waters Life Sustaining gift. The first water walk took place in 2003, led by josephine mondawmin, an ojibway grandmother. Joseph bean was asked, what will you do for the water . After reflecting on the question, she felt moved to. Gather a group of women and start to walk the shorelines of lake superior. They ended up walking arod the entire lake and the walk was born. Eventually, grandmother mondawmin walked to the shorelines of all the great lakes all together, some 17,000 miles before mondawmin died in 2019. She passed the ceremony on to other leaders. Sharon and day, an ojibwe artist, writer and organizer based in minneapolis, continues the walk ceremony. She has walked nearly 10,000 miles of river. It was her walk that i joined on july 23rd,. 20, 21 day. Leads, walks along the length of rivers. She starts with the ceremony at headwaters of a river. She, her fellow water walkers, take turns hand carrying a copper pail filled with the rivers headwaters. They walk from the headwaters to the mouth of the river, where another ceremony is held to reunite the waters. Everyone sings and, prays and speaks to the water. Their path follows the banks of the river and they camp along the way. The water walk falls into a multiplicity of rhythms. The walkers who carry the water set. The central rhythm. The day begins with the gathering of all the walkers and Opening Ceremony where walkers set their intentions for the day. Then the first walker carries the water for about a mile. The group moves along as a caravan. The carrier makes a commitment when accepting the water, teng the phrase and god is it. You get toe j. Once her turn is comple, e water carrier passes the copper pail to the next woman in the days rotation fers the same ceremonial utterance, which means i it for thwar in ojibwe from the beginning of the day to the final ceremony, the water never stops moving, flowing like the river, and we move along with it. According to each walkers pace. Its an audacious thing to carry water by hand over hundreds of miles. Walkers, transit along waterways, paths and logging. Roads busy with summer traffic. The walk that i joined was a line three walk, which was tracing the line of the line three enbridge pipeline. The line three walk across the scars dug into the soil, injuries inflicted to install the pipe sections and aching site. The many vehicles of varying tonnage that support pipe Line Construction whizzed past us, blowing written to our faces, our hair into our eyes, road and motor heat across our bodies and hundred degree weather. We held steady. The water guide and strengthened us even as we carried it, cherished it, saying to it and chanted as we walked upon my arrival to the walk. Sharon stayed close to me for a whi