Page 18 - MLK 2024 Booklet

Land Acknowledgements

What are Land Acknowledgements?
A Land Acknowledgement or Land Recognition is a formal statement, often given orally at the beginning of organized
events, celebrations, or activities. It recognizes, respects, and affirms that there is an irreducible and ongoing relationship
between Indigenous people and the Land. Land Acknowledgements are especially important in contemporary nation-
states, like the US and Canada, in which the political structures are based on settler-colonialism and the expropriation of
Lands from Indigenous peoples. Land Acknowledgements or Land Recognitions serve to illuminate ongoing Indigenous
presence, as well as recognize and counter settler-colonial legacies of violence and Land expropriation.

Land Acknowledgements are a Responsibility.

We respect the desire to recognize the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary stewards of the Land. However, we
ask that when offering a Land Acknowledgement, remember that these Acknowledgements must be preceded by
relationships with living Indigenous people, communities, and nations. This declaration must then be followed with ongoing
commitments to these same communities. Land Acknowledgements are a responsibility.

Provisional Land Acknowledgement

We collectively acknowledge that the Great Lakes area occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Lands of the
Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples. In particular, the Greater Lansing area
resides on Land ceded in the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw. We recognize, support, and advocate for the sovereignty of Michigan’s
twelve federally-recognized Indian nations, for historic Indigenous communities in Michigan, for Indigenous individuals and
communities who live here now, and for those who were forcibly removed from their Homelands. By offering this Land
Acknowledgement, we affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold ourselves more accountable to the needs of
American Indian and Indigenous peoples. We further recognize the ongoing relationship of dependence upon, and respect
for, all living beings of earth, sky, and water. In offering this land acknowledgment, we affirm Indigenous sovereignty, history,
and experiences.”

18 • 39th Annual MLK Day of Celebration