Ground Broken for Jim Thorpe Center Honoring Native Peoples

A new chapter in honoring Native American heritage began on October 14, 2023, as Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, broke ground for the Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples. This facility aims to serve as a premier resource for cultural revitalization, focusing on intergenerational knowledge-sharing and indigenous-centered research.

At the ceremony, a gathering of Native American visitors, college leaders, and community members came together to bless the site. Architect Johnpaul Jones, known for his role in designing the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., emphasized the significance of the location. In his blessing, he stated, “We should not just come build on this site here at Dickinson. We should speak to it first and explain our intentions.” Jones, who is of Native American descent, is part of the design team for the new center, which will be located on West High Street.

The center is named in honor of Jim Thorpe, a legendary athlete and an icon in Native American history. It seeks to transform the historical narrative of Carlisle, which has long been associated with trauma and cultural erasure due to the legacy of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. For more than a century, this site has represented a federal attempt to assimilate Native American youth into mainstream culture, often at the cost of their identities.

The event included the presence of Thorpe’s granddaughters and great-granddaughter, who expressed pride in the center bearing their ancestor’s name. Mary Thorpe, one of his granddaughters from Jones, Oklahoma, shared her emotional connection to the project. “You’re a survivor of children that were meant to be broken,” she said. “You come back here and you’re trying to heal some of that generational trauma so the next generation doesn’t have to maybe fight as hard as we are still trying to today.”

The new center will facilitate symposiums, art exhibitions, ceremonial gatherings, and research efforts that promote the culture the federal government once sought to erase. Amanda Cheromiah, executive director of Dickinson’s existing Center for the Futures of Native Peoples, remarked on the historical significance of the new building, calling it a celebration of survival. “The boarding school system completely changed our communities forever,” she noted.

The blessing ceremony was led by Perry Martinez, a tribal council member of the San Ildefonso Pueblo of New Mexico. In many Native American traditions, the Earth is understood as a living entity, and the act of blessing the ground reaffirmed humanity’s interconnectedness with nature. “Native American people who will use this new facility have traveled a difficult path. This will be a welcoming, healthy and good-spirited place,” Jones added.

This new initiative represents a shift in how the site is perceived, moving from a history of pain to one of empowerment and cultural pride. As the ceremony concluded, participants reflected on the resilience of Native peoples. “It just shows that Pratt didn’t succeed in killing the Indian, you know?” one attendee remarked, highlighting the enduring spirit of Native American communities.

With the groundbreaking of the Jim Thorpe Center, Dickinson College aims to reshape the narrative surrounding Carlisle, fostering a space that honors and uplifts Native American culture for future generations.