PETITION TO MAKE NATIONAL HERITAGE DAY ANNUAL DAY-AFTER-THANKSGIVING OBSERVANCE

To the President and Congress of the United States;

In honor of our American Indigenous Peoples, we, the American People, are asking the President and members of Congress to ratify an annual observance of National Heritage Day which was introduced on November 28th, 2008, by President George W. Bush. We ask that the National Heritage Day be an unpaid observance on the day after Thanksgiving henceforth.

A National Heritage Day observance would serve to increase awareness of our real history (not the white-washed traditionalist version Americans have been presented in K-12 textbooks), and thereby begin to create more meaningful exchange between Native groups and our general population. Such an increase in history awareness would also help end the modern jealousies and prejudices that exist between certain Euro-centric groups and Native Peoples.

In support of a National Heritage Day observance we also favor bumping the Christmas shopping kickoff to the day after National Heritage Day (Saturday, instead of Friday), so that America may more genuinely participate in the cultural benefits of the National Heritage Day observance. While the American People are free to do this without an act of government, it would speed the change if government policy in general supported this movement. As we move, please move with us.

We, the American People, wish to understand what happened in the past between the US and Indigenous Peoples, and to see our Native citizens and sovereign neighbors enjoy equality, prosperity, freedom of religion, and American good will and acceptance. All these objectives begin with educating the population, which can and will be the primary directive of an annual National Heritage Day observance.

(This petition posted online August, 2009, by Carrie Franzwa, aka, The Angel of Thanksgiving Past, author and advocate for Thanksgiving reform.)