Thread by @MaxRaphaelGreen

In summer 1967, there was a jamboree in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. Indigenous people rallied against the Canada's residential school system.

Part of the event was held *inside* of St. Michael's - the school that generations of @connie_walker's family were forced to attend. 1/x

As @connie_walker puts it in episode 3 of Stolen - seeing this kind of resistance in 1967 is remarkable. A few decades earlier this gathering wouldn't have been legal. Indigenous people couldn't hold powwows, hire lawyers, leave their reserves, or freely vote or go to university.

Howard Adams, Ph.D.: "You have segregated residential schools built for Indians, run by white people. This is segregation. This is apartheid. The principle behind this kind of rule is that all men are not created equal."

Mary Ann Lavallee: "Canada is a melting pot of many nationalities...taking for granted their full rights of Canadian citizenship—which is denied and out of the reach of a large segment of its population who, because of being native, have been shunted aside and almost forgotten."

One of the people in attendance at the jamboree, was Leo Cameron, @connie_walker's Moshem. He was a St. Michael's survivor. And in 1967, some of his kids - including Connie's dad - were enrolled at St. Michael's. Footage from that day includes a brief clip of him in the audience

While footage shows the vast majority of people at the jamboree seemed to denounce residential schools, there is one dissenting voice in attendance. One person who appears set apart from everyone else. In some shots, he stands in the back of the room, watching and listening.

It's Father Anthony Duhaime - one of the priests @connie_walker's family accused of abuse. At the time of the jamboree he's the St. Michael's principal. Duhaime says people generalize about residential schools. He says if people don't succeed after leaving them, it's their fault.

One remarkable exchange is captured on film. Duhaime argues with a group of young Indigenous people in a hallway in St. Michael's. Reporters and others are gathered around, watching and listening as things get heated. One man, Duke Redbird, stands eye to eye with the priest.

Duhaime raises his voice repeats the same arguments—residential schools are good for Indigenous children, and if they don't "succeed" after leaving, it's because they didn't have the "gumption." When he's called out for talking over people, he turns his back and walks away.

So much is encapsulated in this moment 45 years ago. Not just the collective stand against the machine of assimilation and cultural genocide that was residential schools - but the stand against an individual man, a priest imbued with power and protected by a racist system.

And when the people he condescends to point out the priest's hypocrisy - within the walls of the residential school he oversees - he has no response. Duhaime just walks away, refusing to hear, refusing to listen, refusing to face

This was before the truths of residential schools were widely known. Could it still be that easy for a priest to just walk away?

Episode 3 of STOLEN: SURVIVING ST. MICHAEL'S is out today.

open.spotify.com/episode/5kldOx…