The Gathering at Ft. Lincoln

The Gathering at Ft. Lincoln

They came from many corners of this land to a place on the Great Plains
Where the ancestors of the hosts of the gathering had roamed free and proud.

They came to a room constructed over a swimming pool of collective tears
Representing lost freedoms, lost integrity and shame.

They were of diverse lineage---mainly Native American, Japanese, German
But also Scotch Irish, English, African American and others.

Here they forged bonds of unity with story telling and conversations
And the examination of words such as justice, courage, integrity and resilience.

And from this forging and examining emerged friendships bridging the span of time
And the barriers of cultural differences;

Friendships cemented by shared experiences and empathy
And a ceremony led by a Lakota medicine man.

Ursula Vogt Potter
June 4, 2010

The Planning Conference at Ft. Lincoln

It has been two months since my husband, Ted, and I traveled to Ft. Lincoln (Bismarck, ND) to attend a planning conference which was the result of a grant
issued by the National Park Service in response to Public Law 109-441. This law authorized the NPS to create a program which would encourage and support the preservation and interpretation of historic confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II. During the development of the grant program, the scope of the project was augmented to also include the stories of ethnic Germans and Italians as well as other Europeans and Latin Americans who were interned alongside the Japanese in some DOJ camps---Ft. Lincoln being an example of such a camp.
It has taken me at least this long to really digest the significance of the conference at Ft. Lincoln. Our hosts, and the actual recipients of the grant, were the people at United Tribes Technical College (the current owner and occupant of Ft. Lincoln).
Rather than try to put into my own words the scope of the conference, I am including a link to a news article written by Martha Nakagawa that describes wonderfully the happenings of the conference which took place from May 29 through June 2 of 2010:

http://www.uttc.edu/news/story/070810_01.asp