A crowd gathered in front of the Statehouse last Friday to celebrate a plan that will guide the work of a relatively new state office, the Vermont Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
It was nearly three years to the day since, in the same place, lawmakers publicly apologized for the state’s role in the eugenics movement in the early 1900s – a popular pseudoscience at the time that inspired Vermont’s 1931 voluntary sterilization law and seeded the social policies of Nazi Germany.
That apology led to the creation of the truth commission — an office of six state employees tasked with creating a public record of discrimination perpetuated by state laws and policies and compiling recommendations for repairing harm and preventing ongoing discrimination.
They’ve been meeting for over a year to figure out how to go about that work, which will conclude in 2027. They plan to conduct “public truth-telling sessions” and open-door office hours across dozens of towns this spring.
“Every step is intentional,” Mia Schultz, the president of the Rutland area branch of the NAACP and one of the commissioners of the state office, said in an interview after the event.
“We're going to continue to use our intentionality, open the space for everybody to speak and everybody to tell their truths as much as we can, given the scope — the seemingly impossible scope — that we've been given.”
That scope includes pursuing justice for specific identity groups named by the law, including those who “identify” as Native American or Indigenous, people with disabilities, people of color, and Franco-Americans.
“We're going to continue to use our intentionality [...] given the scope — the seemingly impossible scope — that we've been given.”Mia Schultz, Vermont Truth and Reconciliation Commission
The office could begin taking virtual public testimony as soon as next month, according to their strategic plan, but Schultz said that timeline could change.
“We want to make sure that we're doing everything that we possibly can to take care of people,” she said. “So if we don't have that together, I'm not going to force it to happen in November.”
Regardless, their public-facing work started in earnest in Montpelier last week.
The event opened with a drumming circle, led by students of Brenda Gagne, the chief of the state-recognized Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi, based in Swanton.
“We’re happy to be here today,” she said. “Not happy of why it brings us here and what’s happened in the history of Vermont to our people and people of color.”
In a statement from the Abenaki Heritage organization, the Abenaki Councils of Odanak and Wôlinak say they were removed from Vermont, and the land is still their unceded territory. They condemned the commission’s work with state-recognized tribes, who they say are committing identity fraud. State-recognized tribes deny this allegation.
The group also calls the basis of the truth commission problematic, since they say it implies that the eugenics movement in Vermont targeted Abenaki peoples.
Vermont Public has investigated this theory, and did not find evidence to support it.
“If it is your intention to seek historical truth and to practice reconciliation, we urge you to support actual Indigenous people and actual Native sovereignty and justice,” the statement concluded.
One of the speakers at the event, Beverly Little Thunder, of Huntington, a Lakota elder and member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota, also noted the absence of those Abenaki nations.
“I look around and I don’t see anybody from Odanak and Wôlinak,” she said. “Those citizens there should be here – we’re talking about reconciliation. They should be here talking about the harm that has been done to their communities.”
After Little Thunder spoke, Schultz helped her down the stairs.
“You were good,” she told Little Thunder, “You said what you needed to say.”
Later, Schultz acknowledged the criticism from the Abenaki Heritage organization. “We're not here to exclude anybody and exclude anybody's voices,” she said. “That means anybody – not just the Odanak.”
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