Native American Heritage Month

è��AVaffirms and uplifts Indigenous voices through performances, discussions, events, and Social Impact programs. Explore the many expressions of native cultures on our stages and in our halls.

Free Performances

Millennium Stage (In-Person and Livestream)

Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin

Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin are two award-winning performing artists who have joined forces on their Smithsonian Folkways release, symbiont (2024). Blount is a renowned interpreter of Black folk music, and Obomsawin is a celebrated composer and bassist-vocalist.

Millennium Stage (In-Person and Livestream)

Miss Chief Rocka

Culture Caucus member Angela Miracle Gladue aka Miss Chief Rocka, is a nehiyaw (Cree)/Greek interdisciplinary artist from the Treaty 6 Territory of amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta). Since 2016, Angela has toured as one of the lead dancers for The Halluci Nation (formerly known as A Tribe Called Red), and has also opened for major recording artists such as TLC, Sean Paul, Lil’ Kim, and more.

Millennium Stage (In-Person and Livestream)

Tia Wood

Tia Wood followed her heart from the Rez to the city of Angels to make her musical dreams come true. Her powerful, soulful voice carries the spirit of her people’s songs that have echoed from her homelands since time immemorial, and the musical roots of her family tree run deep.

We acknowledge that we are standing on the traditional land of the Nacotchtank and Piscataway peoples past and present, and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have been the stewards of this land throughout the generations.

Watch More Performances

Tony Duncan Flute Blessing

Indigenous Day at the REACH

Native Pride Dancers

Pamuya

Jennifer Kreisberg

Lei Aloha

Charly Lowry

Sihasin

Native Americans and the Declaration of Independence

A response developed during our partnership with First Peoples Fund

“He [King George III] has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rules of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.” —Grievance 27, Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence uplifts liberating democratic ideals while dehumanizing Native Americans as “merciless Indian savages.” This racist positioning of Native peoples as “savages” led to seizing lands, removing entire tribes through Trails of Tears, outlawing cultural practices, and excluding participation in U.S. civic society.

By 1776, numerous Native nations had engaged with competing colonial powers for nearly two centuries. Native Americans defended their homelands through trade, diplomacy, or war. To indigenous peoples, the frontier was the line of defense for their lands and livelihoods. In the American Revolution some tribes allied with the Americans while others sided with the British with desperate intent to maintain their own Native sovereignties. Both the Americans and the British abandoned their respective Native allies at the war’s end. In the era that followed, Native Americans lost more land, lives, and freedoms to United States westward expansion. It was not until the late 20th century that policies restored self-determination to tribes, signaling that the Declaration of Independence’s ideals are still in process for Native Americans.

Native Americans, despite the inequalities suffered over time, remain overwhelmingly patriotic in defending and caretaking this country. They demonstrate the highest rates of U.S. military service of any ethnic group. The Declaration’s most powerful philosophies align with millennia-old Native American concepts of democracy, freedom, and equality. The long road to form a more perfect union with respect and rights restoration continues with tenacity and hope across over 570 tribes in the contemporary United States.

Dr. Gabrielle Tayac
Piscataway Historian

Meet Dr. Elizabeth Rule

Currently holding a Kennedy Center Social Practice Residency (2022–2025), Dr. Elizabeth Rule (citizen, Chickasaw Nation) is a writer, public scholar, advocate for Indigenous communities, and an assistant professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies at American University.

Rule’s time at the Kennedy Center is being dedicated to the development of an Indigenous feminist television screenplay, Moon Time.

Rule’s research on issues in her Native American community has been featured in the Washington Post, Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, the Atlantic, Newsy, and NPR. She has two forthcoming monographs: one analyzes historical and contemporary sites of Indigenous importance in Washington, D.C., the other links Native women’s reproductive justice issues and the missing and murdered Indigenous women.