Indigenous People’s Day is next week, and Native American heritage celebrations will continue next month. But starting next school year, Illinois students will learn about Native history year-round after Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill into law.
Books about Native Americans. (Ali Eminov / Flickr)
What Will Be Studied in Schools?
- Contemporary Native American history about Illinois tribes
- Forced Native American removal when students learn about the Holocaust and other genocides
- Tribal sovereignty
But Those Aren’t the Only Changes
Pritzker also signed other laws allowing students to wear Native dress to graduations and establishing procedures to return human remains to Native American nations.
A woman shows her children how the Pawnee grind corn at the Field Museum in 2020. (Joel Lerner / Xinhua / Getty)
Don’t Want to Wait?
Chicago has one of the largest urban Native American populations in the U.S., so there are opportunities to educate yourself and your kids now with library books, self-guided walks, and museum exhibits.
