The Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness, a 6,800-mile trip across the United States, concluded in ceremony in the Potomac Atrium of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on Wednesday, June 24. The journey, made by car, began in May at the Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Ore., and visited 23 current and former boarding schools in 18 states.

By Abby BensonSmithsonian’s National Museum of the American IndianThe Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness arrives in the Potomac Atrium of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on June 24, to complete a 6,800-mile cross-country pilgrimage. Participants stopped at 23 current and former boarding schools, seeking healing for the schools’ survivors and their families

Don Coyhis, founding director and organizer of White Bison Inc., has sent a letter to President Obama asking for an apology for the abuses to Native American children in boarding schools. He hopes that the United States will follow in the steps of Canada and Australia, which have both apologized for lasting harm caused by boarding schools.

Coyhis said, quoting elders, that now is the time of forgiveness. Native peoples must forgive the unforgivable in order for healing to begin from the addiction, suicide and abuse that grew out of the 131-year-old boarding school system, he said.

Starting at Carlisle Boarding School in Pennsylvania in 1878, the U.S. government developed a pattern of separating Native students from their families, cultures and languages using punishment, and physical and sexual abuse, Coyhis said in a YouTube broadcast about the journey.

During the journey, local organizers invited the Native public to take part in events in their area, which drew hundreds of people. Lonny Pennycord, a member of the Boarding School Healing Project, participated in both the journey’s start in Oregon and its conclusion at the museum in Washington, D.C.

“I am proud to have been a part of this historic journey, being there at the beginning at Chemawa Indian School on May 16th, and at the end on June 24th at the National Museum of the American Indian,” Pennycord wrote. “The time for this healing has been a long time coming for the generations forcibly required to attend the boarding schools in the government’s attempts at assimilation of these proud peoples.”

At the journey’s conclusion, a ceremony was held, and those gathered were invited to step into the sacred hoop, to forgive and to be healed.

Learn about the Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness, and read journal entries from the route, at www.whitebison.org/wellbriety-journey/index.htm.