(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . North Carolina Open Thread: Repatriating remains of Southeastern tribes, Confederate monuments, more [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-16 Facing South, Maydha Devarajan, 4/14/2023 On a Saturday afternoon in late March, a small group of Native American tribal members gathered at an auction house in rural Mebane, North Carolina, protesting the sale of a 600-year-old human skull. Local law enforcement had been made aware of the auction just days prior but determined that the sale didn’t violate state or federal law, as reported by The News & Observer. The day before the planned sale, a member of the state’s Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation had created a TikTok video that drew thousands of views, fueling outrage and demands to pull the skull from the auction. Tribal members were ultimately able to halt the sale of the skull, and its owners have since indicated their interest in repatriation. But the incident underscores complications surrounding protections for Native American burial remains in Southeastern states. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) passed by Congress in 1990 sets out a process for federal agencies and museums that receive federal funding to repatriate cultural items — including human remains and funerary objects — to Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. But the landmark legislation doesn’t apply to tribes without federal recognition, leaving many in the Southeast — most of which have only state recognition — to the mercy of institutions that may or may not be willing to engage them in the repatriation process while grappling with laws that vary from state to state. More than three decades after the passing of NAGPRA, hundreds of thousands of Native American remains have not yet been returned to their descendants or laid to rest but instead are locked in storage facilities and research labs across the country. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility corporation, maintains the largest collection held by a federal agency. The agency only recently completed a NAGPRA inventory of the remains of nearly 5,000 Native Americans it removed from Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky, with repatriation set to begin later this month. Facing South, Sue Sturgis, 4/14/2023 Number of people who died in a March 27 shooting at The Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school in the Tennessee capital of Nashville, including three 9-year-olds: 6 Number of rounds of ammunition the shooter — carrying an AR-15 military-style rifle, a 9 mm Kel-Tec SUB2000 pistol caliber carbine, and a 9 mm Smith & Wesson M&P Shield EZ 2.0 handgun — fired before being fatally shot by police: 152 On average, number of people who are shot to death every year in Tennessee: 1,385 Rank of Tennessee among states with the highest rates of gun violence: 10th Rank of Tennessee among states with the strongest gun laws, according to Everytown for Gun Safety: 29th Of the 21 states with gun laws weaker than Tennessee's, number that are in the South: 6* A week after the Nashville shooting, number of area students who walked out of class and marched on the state Capitol to demand stronger gun laws: over 1,000 Rather than heeding that call, date on which Tennessee's Republican-controlled House instead expelled two Black Democratic members for violating chamber rules by vocally joining the nonviolent protest while standing at the House well — but not the white Democratic member who joined them: 4/6/2023 Thirteen more dates and numbers follow in this index. NC Newsline, Joe Killian, 4/14/2023 North Carolina was among the states that removed the most Confederate monuments and symbols last year, according to new data from the Southern Poverty Law Center. But just seven such symbols were removed, according to the SPLC; 173 remain across the state. This week, as the North Carolina Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities held a symposium on the importance of removing monuments to the Confederacy, the SPLC urged states to do better. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/16/2164195/-North-Carolina-Open-Thread-Repatriating-remains-of-Southeastern-tribes-Confederate-monuments-more Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/