On National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day, Dickinson students and faculty gathered on the Academic Quad to commemorate the Indigenous people who suffered in schools such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. 

Between 1869 and the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were voluntarily or forcibly removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools in order to erase and assimilate Native peoples. Orange Shirt Day is named for Phyllis Webstad, who wore an orange shirt on her first day at a boarding school but was forced to give it up. Her personal experience of being forced to give up a part of her identity mirrors the loss of culture and identity for many Native children. The orange shirt has since become a symbol of resilience and remembrance in Indigenous communities.

These schools repetitively abused these children physically, sexually and culturally. They would punish children for speaking their native language or acting in any way that was seen as traditionally Native American. Many of the children sent to these schools never returned home.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, only one and half miles away from Dickinson College, was one of the first boarding schools founded, opening in 1879. Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle school, presented a purpose to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Approximately 10,000 children attended the school in the time it was open. The school closed in 1918 because of World War I and a growing dislike of the school’s method of assimilation.

In Fall 2023, Dickinson opened the Center for the Future of Native Peoples. As stated on it’s webpage, it is “a pioneering initiative dedicated to advancing the understanding and appreciation of the Indigenous boarding school experience, promoting the study of North American indigeneity, and fostering a robust national conversation on the past, present and future of Native American issues.” The Center recognizes the past wrongs of Dickinson’s relationship to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Nevertheless, the impacts of these Native American boarding schools are still present today. The cemetery that is on the former school grounds, and now part of the U.S. Army War College, honors the lives lost at the school, yet the remains of 11 Native American children have only just been returned to families.

Orange Shirt Day is a way of recognizing and honoring the experiences of children who attended boarding schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.