Orange Shirt Day
The first Orange Shirt Day was celebrated on September 30, 2013 in honor of Native American and Indigenous boarding school survivors, descendants and deceased students. These boarding schools were created by the federal government and religious missionaries to assimilate Native American and Indigenous children into Western culture and to eradicate the practice of their traditional culture, language and ceremony. The day is known as “Orange Shirt Day” after former student Phyllis Webstad shared her story of her first day at boarding school in which her favorite orange shirt was taken away. September 30 has been annually declared Orange Shirt Day in recognition of the harm that the Native American and Indigenous boarding school system did to generations of Native American and Indigenous families and communities.
For more information on Orange Shirt Day, visit orangeshirtday.org.
For additional Native American/Indigenous events, visit the Center for Belonging and Social Change.