We acknowledge that the land we inhabit today is the traditional and ancestral home of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi nations. This region has long served as a vital center of trade and gathering for many tribes, including the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox. We recognize that this land was forcibly taken through broken treaties and systemic displacement, and we honor the enduring presence of the Indigenous people who continue to live, work, and create in Chicago today. As home to one of the largest urban Indigenous communities in the country, we celebrate their legacy and ongoing contributions to this sacred space.
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We gather today on the traditional unceded homelands of the Anishinaabe—the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. This sacred ground that we now call Chicago has also been home to the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac and Fox, and many other Indigenous peoples who gathered here to trade, celebrate, and strengthen their bonds of kinship.
The waters and land that sustain us have been tended by these nations since time immemorial. Today, one of the largest urban Indigenous communities in the United States continues this legacy in Chicago — honoring their heritage, practicing ancient traditions, and caring for the earth and waters that connect us all.
As we cast our circle and call upon the energies of this place, let us acknowledge these first stewards and reflect on how deeply our understanding of ownership, hierarchy, and sovereignty has been shaped by systems that have marginalized Indigenous wisdom.
In this sacred space we create together, may we find the courage and vision to imagine new ways of being—ways that honor all our relations and help us dismantle the structures that separate us from each other and from the earth.