December 3, 2024
Grant will fund creation of the New Jersey Center for Indigenous Justice and support growth of Native American and Indigenous Studies
Posted in: Humanities and Social Sciences, Press Releases, University
Members of the Red Blanket Singers of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribe perform a traditional dance at Montclair’s 2022 celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day. (Photo by Mike Peters)
The Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) program of Montclair State University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences has been awarded a three-year, $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to create a new center, the New Jersey Center for Indigenous Justice (NJCIJ), and to expand its programing.
With its commitment to Indigenous rights, racial justice, decolonization and eco-justice, the NAIS program emphasizes the priorities of New Jersey’s state-recognized Native American tribes – the Ramapough Lunaape, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape and Powhatan Renape nations – which include environmental justice, political recognition, cultural heritage and language revitalization.
The NJCIJ will be a center for communication, fundraising, events and gatherings that highlight the unique questions facing Montclair’s Indigenous students and New Jersey’s tribal communities. It will coordinate the University’s work to change public narratives, increase Indigenous student enrollment and pursue justice-oriented action on issues affecting Native people in the state.
“The NJCIJ will give focus to the varied work Montclair faculty and students are doing in partnership with New Jersey’s tribal communities,” says Anthropology Department Chair Chris Matthews, a co-director of NAIS and co-Principal Investigator of the grant. “[It] will be the first and only university-based project in New Jersey that aims to transform public understanding of Native people and to do so in partnership with Indigenous communities across the…
