Native Americans laud Biden for historic apology over boarding schools. They want action to follow

LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz. (AP) — President Joe Biden did something Friday that no other sitting U.S. president has: He apologized for the systemic abuse of generations of Indigenous children endured in boarding schools at the hands of the federal government.

For 150 years the U.S. removed Indigenous children from their homes and sent them away to the schools, where they were stripped of their cultures, histories and religions and beaten for speaking their languages.

“We should be ashamed,” Biden said to a crowd of Indigenous people gathered at the Gila River Indian Community outside of Phoenix, including tribal leaders, survivors and their families. Biden called the government-mandated system that began in 1819 “one of the most horrific chapters in American history,” while acknowledging the decades of abuse inflicted upon children and widespread devastation left behind.

For many Native Americans, the long-awaited apology was a welcome acknowledgment of the government’s longstanding culpability. Now, they say, words must be followed up by action.

Bill Hall, 71, of Seattle, was 9 when he was taken from his Tlingit community in Alaska and forced to attend a boarding school, where he endured years of physical and sexual abuse that lead to many more years of shame. When he first heard that Biden was going to apologize, he wasn’t sure he would be able to accept it.

“But, as I was watching, tears began to flow from my eyes,” Hall said. “Yes, I accept his apology. Now, what can we do next?”

Rosalie Whirlwind Soldier, a 79-year-old citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said she felt “a tingle in my heart” and was glad the historical wrong was being acknowledged. Still, she remains saddened by the irreversible harms done to her people.

Whirlwind Soldier suffered severe mistreatment at a school in South Dakota that left her with a lifelong, painful limp. The Catholic-run, government-subsidized facility took away her faith and tried to stamp out her Lakota identity by cutting off her long braids, she said.

“Sorry is not enough. Nothing is enough when you damage a human being,” she said. “A whole generation of people and our future was destroyed for us.”

The schools were designed both to assimilate Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children and to dispossess tribal nations of their land, according to an Interior Department investigation launched by Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to lead the agency.

Introducing Biden on Friday, Haaland said that while the formal apology is an acknowledgement of a dark chapter, it is also a celebration of Indigenous resilience: “Despite everything that happened, we are still here.”

Haaland, a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna, commissioned the investigation in 2021. It documented the cases of more than 18,000 Indigenous children, of whom 973 were killed. Both the report and independent researchers say the overall number was much higher.

The report came with several recommendations taken from the testimony of school survivors, including resources for mental health treatment and language revitalization programs.

Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis noted that Biden has pledged to make good on those recommendations.

“This lays the framework to address the boarding school policies of the past,” he said.

Benjamin Mallott, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, who is Lingít, said in a statement that the apology must be accompanied by meaningful actions: “This includes revitalizing our languages and cultures and bringing home our Native children who have not yet been returned, so they can be laid to rest with their families and in their communities.”

That view is shared by Victoria Kitcheyan, chairwoman of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, which sued the U.S. Army in January seeking the return of the remains of two children who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

“That healing doesn’t start until tribes have a pathway to bring their children home to be laid to rest,” Kitcheyan said.

In an interview Thursday, Haaland said Interior is still working with several tribal nations to repatriate the remains of several children who were killed and buried at a boarding school.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who introduced a bill last year to establish a truth and healing commission to address the harms caused by the boarding school system, called the apology “a historic step toward long-overdue accountability for the harms done to Native children and their communities.”

And Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who is vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, also commended Biden while saying it reinforces the need for a truth and healing commission.

“This acknowledgement of the pain and injustices inflicted upon Indigenous communities — while long overdue — is an extremely important step toward healing,” Murkowski said in a statement.

As Biden spoke Friday, tribal members rose to their feet, with many recording the moment on their phones. Some wore traditional garments, and others had shirts supporting Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

There was a moment of silence, the formal apology and then an eruption of applause.

At the end of Biden’s remarks, the crowd stood again. There were shouts of, “Thank you, Joe.”

Hall, the boarding school survivor in Seattle, and others have long been advocating for resources to redress the harm. He worries that tribal nations will continue to struggle with healing unless the government steps up, and he sees a long road yet ahead.

“It took a lifetime to get here. It’s going to take a lifetime to get to the other side,” he said. “And that’s the very sad part of it. I won’t see it in my generation.”

Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report.

FILE - A poster about the history of Carlisle Indian Reform School includes a historical photo of Sioux girls upon arrival from their homes to the boarding school on Saturday, July 17, 2021 at the Sinte Gleska University Student Multicultural Center in Rosebud, S.D. (Erin Bormett/The Argus Leader via AP, File)

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks at the Gila Crossing Community School in the Gila River Indian Community reservation in Laveen, Ariz., Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Joe Biden speaks at the Gila Crossing Community School, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Laveen, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

President Joe Biden, left, joined by Stephen Roe Lewis, Governor of the Gila River Indian Community, arrives to speak at the Gila Crossing Community School in the Gila River Indian Community reservation in Laveen, Ariz., Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Attendees listen as Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks before President Joe Biden at the Gila Crossing Community School in the Gila River Indian Community reservation in Laveen, Ariz., Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Joe Biden speaks at the Gila Crossing Community School, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Laveen, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — The United Nations' annual climate talks pushed into overtime Saturday under a cloud of anger and disappointment as negotiators were well short of a deal on money for developing nations to curb and adapt to climate change.

A draft of the final agreement Friday pledged $250 billion annually by 2035, more than double the previous goal of $100 billion set 15 years ago but far short of the annual $1 trillion-plus that experts say is needed. Through the early hours of Saturday morning, The Associated Press saw lead negotiators from the European Union, the United States and other nations going through the empty halls from meeting to meeting as delegates tried to hash out a new version of the deal.

“We're still working hard,” U.S. climate envoy John Podesta told the AP past 4 a.m. local time. And by late Saturday morning, he and other delegations said talks on a new deal were still ongoing.

Alden Meyer, of the European think tank E3G, said negotiators now have very little room for error.

“They’ve got to make sure whatever they put on the table is something that can fly. ... Because otherwise we start to lose critical mass as ministers start to leave tonight and into tomorrow,” Meyer said. “So, they are under a deadline, but this is when it gets real.”

The climate talks, called COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, were scheduled to end Friday. Workers have already begun dismantling the venue for the talks.

Wealthy nations are obligated to help vulnerable countries under an agreement reached at these talks in Paris in 2015. Developing nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to help adapt to droughts, floods, rising seas and extreme heat, pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather, and transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy.

Representatives of some of the nations that are obliged to contribute the cash said the $250 billion climate finance figure is realistic and reflects their limits at a time when their own economies are stretched.

But on Saturday morning, Irish environment minister Eamon Ryan said that he felt there'll be a new number in the next draft.

"We’ll have to see what the final number is. I don’t think it’ll be the one initially published yesterday," Ryan said. “But it’s not just that number — it's how do you get to 1.3 trillion."

Ryan said that any number reached at the COP will have to be supplemented with other sources of finance, for example through a market for carbon emissions where polluters would pay to offset what they emit.

The amount in any deal reached at COP negotiations — often considered a “core” — will then be mobilized or leveraged for greater climate spending. But much of that means loans for countries drowning in debt.

“We have to get agreement quickly. And I hope and believe we can,” Ryan said.

Vulnerable nations, many already battered by extreme weather made worse largely by emissions from the burning of fossil fuels they've had little to do with were angered by the draft text published on Friday.

“Developed countries must commit trillions, not empty promises," said Harjeet Singh, Director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. "Anything less makes them squarely responsible for the failure of these talks and the betrayal of billions across the globe.”

Meyer of E3G said it’s still up in the air whether a deal will come out of Baku at all.

“It is still not out of the question that there could be an inability to close the gap on the finance issue,” he said. “That obviously is not an ideal scenario.”

Several dozen activists marched in silence outside the halls where delegates meet late Friday, raising and crossing their arms in front of themselves to indicate rejection of the draft text.

Also late Friday, 355 civil society organizations released a letter in support of the G77 and China negotiating group’s rejection of the latest draft.

The letter urged negotiators to “stand up for the people of the Global South," saying that “no deal in Baku is better than a bad deal.”

Lidy Nacpil, a Filipino coordinator with the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, said activists would still be unhappy if the climate finance number doubles to $500 billion.

“We’re still at this point where we are asking developing countries to stay strong and not just give in to far, far less than what should be,” she said.

With bleary eyes, seated around cold pizza, a group of youth activists chatted to keep each other awake through the early hours of Saturday in one of the main halls of the venue.

“All of us are kind of in mourning in a way,” said Jessica Dunne, with the Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth. But the group said being in community eases the painful emotions that come with a process Dunne called an “abject failure.”

“In these halls tonight, as we’re sitting here and we’re talking and we’re dancing and crying and laughing, it kind of gives you hope that there will be another day that we’re going to fight for,” she said.

Associated Press journalists Ahmed Hatem, Aleksandar Furtula and Joshua A. Bickel contributed to this report.

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Marina Silva, Brazil environment minister, stands near a sign for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

John Podesta, U.S. climate envoy, center right, and U.S. Deputy Climate Envoy Sue Biniaz, center, walk outside the venue for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

A member of security stands with the Baku Olympic Stadium in the background during the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Attendees pull luggage as they walk into the venue for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Australia Climate Minister Chris Bowen, center, walks through a hallway at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

U.S. Deputy Climate Envoy Sue Biniaz, right, and Wopke Hoekstra, EU climate commissioner, second from right, walk out of an elevator during the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

John Podesta, U.S. climate envoy, right, walks through the hallways of the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

People sleep in the Chinese delegation offices at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Activists demonstrate in silence protesting a draft of a proposed deal for curbing climate change at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)