Dr. Margaret Jacobs recalls her interest in indigenous child removal began as she learned about these policies in Australian and then investigated policies in the United States, identifying late 19th century Indian Boarding Schools and after WWII, using adoption as the mechanism for removing children. To her surprise, Margaret found that white women, rather than be appalled by the separation of children from their parents, often supported these policies. In the US these removal policies were solely focused on Native American children. Dr. Jacobs believed that our country’s desire for land was at the heart of removal policies, anticipating that they would accelerate the disappearance of their culture and their connection to their land. The UN Convention on Genocide has identified the removal of children from their families as a form of genocide. Margaret Jacobs provides the rationale of founders of the infamous Carlisle Indian School (Pennsylvania) in 1879. Old army barracks were converted into the first federal boarding school that claimed to have the solution to what was then called the “Indian Problem.” The children’s lives were very regimented with uniforms and marching. They performed much of the labor needed to operate the schools. The schools were vectors for disease and many children died. Genoa Indian School was located in Nebraska. While it was closer to many tribes, children were often prevented from any contact with their families, even though they were geographically closer. Children still in diapers were sent to these boarding schools and young adults beyond 18 sometimes also continued at the schools. These age ranges were beyond the purported policies of day schools for younger children and release upon mid-teens. Boarding schools slowly declined in popularity until the 1970s when the US government passed a series of Indian self-determination policies. After WWII, the government tended to use state-based child protective services systems to place indigenous children in Non-native foster and adoptive families. There are many reports of Native child physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in both institutions and through the foster and adoptive systems. Up to 25%-35% of Native American children were removed from their homes during this time. While boarding schools still exist, they are either run by the tribes or the Bureau of Indian Education. These schools tend to embrace native cultures, but a recent report found the Bureau of Indian Education schools operate out of substandard facilities. Sandra White Hawk, a Native woman, started the First Nations Repatriation Institute, a resource for First Nations people impacted by foster care or adoption to return home, reconnect, and reclaim their identity. Sandra was adopted and recalls there was an assumption that her White adoptive family was upstanding and so there was no channel for her to report the sexual abuse she suffered. Dr. Jacobs notes that Native families attempted to get their children back, but were prevented from doing so. Margaret co-founded Reconciliation Rising to move from research to support healing. She was inspired by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation project. The multi-media project documents the work of Indigenous and Non-indigenous communities working together to find healing, including land repatriation, native seed banks, and communities coming to terms with their involvement in harming native communities. Margaret notes that locally-based healing can be a powerful gesture because these injustices happened at the local level. Margaret has also worked to continue to assemble historical records and data. There is a website and podcast. Her co-founder is Lincoln journalist and Rosebud Sioux tribe member Kevin Abourezk. Margaret’s latest book After One Hundred Winters: In Search of Reconciliation on America’s Stolen Lands reminds us that the US was built on the violent dispossession of Indigenous people and discuss what sort of reconciliation is possible. The book is based on the interviews she and Kevin conducted through the Reconciliation Rising project. Margaret is also the Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies which also has developed resources around reconciliation.