LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Land Acknowledgment

We want to acknowledge the land upon which City Chapel worships. We collectively acknowledge that the State of Michigan occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Lands of the Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples.

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 City Chapel more accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous peoples.

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.