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PROPOSED SUBSTITUTE TO FILE 21-0565
(Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee 10/5/2021)
Sponsored by: BRANDON JOHNSON, Cook County Board of Commissioners
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
CELEBRATING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' DAY AND RECONCILIATION DAY
WHEREAS, the County of Cook in the State of Illinois occupies territory that many Sovereign Nations, including the Council of Three Fires: Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Odawa, as well as Ho-Chunk, Miami, Sac and Fox, Peoria, Illini and others consider a part of their historical and modern-day homelands; and
WHEREAS, the Indigenous peoples of the Americas who were the original inhabitants of the land, experienced broken promises, violence, deprivation, and disease due to the acts of European colonizers; and
WHEREAS, Native Americans in Cook County make up the ninth largest Urban Native community in the country, a community that continues to practice their cultural traditions, caretaking of the land and educating others about their history and contemporary challenges; and
WHEREAS, Cook County acknowledges a responsibility to support diversity, equity and inclusion in all communities and this effort must acknowledge that Indigenous peoples were systematically removed from their homelands, maligned for their values and killed to provide economic opportunities to European colonizers; and
WHEREAS, Indigenous Peoples' Day was proposed to the United Nations in 1977 by an international delegation of Indigenous peoples' to inform the world about the negative impacts of colonization and the lasting pains of genocide committed against Native people, Cook County must reconcile the past and present harm and trauma perpetrated on Native people; and
WHEREAS, the land we call Cook County has always been home to Native Nations with vibrant cultural traditions and relationships to the land, and while long overdue, the Native Nations' many contributions to our present day society must be acknowledged to create a County where div...
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