To ‘Honor The Shoulders We Stand On:’ Big Band Premieres With Nod To History Of Native Jazz Musicians

By Tom Banse
The Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band posed for a commemorative photo after their premiere in Olympia on May 19, 2022.
A scheme to entertain a 4-year-old youngster in Spokane by playing a jazz album nearly three decades ago produced a cascade of aftereffects that culminated on stage in Olympia, Washington, this month with crescendos of horns and multiple standing ovations. During the debut of a 16-piece, all-Indigenous big band, the performers on stage hearkened even further back in Read More

On Nez Perce Reservation, Lapwai Addresses Mental Health By Understanding Kids’ Culture

By NWPB News
Lapwai School district students dressed in traditional clothing of the Nez Perce Tribe
The 500-student Lapwai School District takes an all-bases-covered approach to student well-being, including leveraging partnerships with the Nez Perce tribe and local community to address youth mental health. The small North Idaho district is among only nine rural districts in the state to provide four key behavioral health supports for all of its students, according to an Read More

‘It’s Irreversible’: Goldendale Green Energy Project Highlights A History Of Native Dispossession

By Courtney Flatt
Rattlesnake Mountain on the Hanford Reach National Monument has restricted and protected access. It's considered a sacred site by Northwest tribes, including the Yakama Nation and Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla. CREDIT ANNA KING/NW NEWS NETWORK
The Goldendale Energy Storage Project would be a solution to generate energy when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. But, to the Yakama Nation, the destruction of those sites would add another heartbreak to an ever-expanding list. Countless important cultural areas have faced destruction across the Northwest, largely because they’re not understood by Read More

Confronting The Blind Spot In The Great American Protest Song ‘This Land Is Your Land’

By NPR News
Picture of Woody Guthrie performing
Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" has long been offered as an "alternative national anthem," performed by musicians from Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger to Chicano Batman and Sharon Jones. Its message seems fairly simple — we are all equally entitled to the rights of this country, including the land we stand on. But Native Americans will just as soon point out Read More
Load More