Abenaki Denounce 9/11 Flag Memorial Vandalism

Abenaki Denounce 9/11 Flag Memorial Vandalism

9/11 memorial of miniature flags stuck into the ground in front of Mead Chapel is defaced (the flags are removed) by student Anna Shireman- Grabowski '14.5. She made this decision as a form of protest/activism, saying that the memorial was a desecration of allegedly Abenaki burial grounds. She then later clarifies that the "local Abenaki community should in no way be implicated in [the events]", nor did she consult with any members of the community prior to the action. The administrative response was a potentially punitive investigation/hearing of Shireman Grabowski, as well as a denial of the presence of Abenaki burial grounds on campus. Shireman Grabowski's act of was then denounced by a leader of the Middlebury Abenaki community.

Volume 112, Number 2

Emily Singer

The Campus

09/19/2013

Anna Shireman- Grabowski '14.5
William B. Hart- Associate Professor of History

"'Today I chose to act in solidarity with my friend, an Indigenous woman and a citizen of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy who was appalled to see the burial grounds of another Indigenous nation desecrated by piercing the ground that their remains lay beneath".

"This does not mean that there are no native mortuary remains to be found on or near the campus. Rather, it means that none have been excavated or found,' Hart clarified, ultimately calling the possibility that the College sits atop a sacred Abenaki burial ground, 'unlikely, although not impossible,' and only verifiable after an unlikely and 'undesirable' archaeological dig."