For nearly a century, a large red boulder rested affixed to a stone base and adorned with a plaque commemorating the white settlers of Lawrence, Kansas. Approximately 94 years later, less than a block away from its home north of 6th St. and adjacent to the Kaw River in Robinson Park, an official return ceremony was hosted for the 28-ton quartzite boulder that remains a sacred and previously unacknowledged object to the Kaw Nation.
Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe, or the Sacred Red Rock, was officially returned to the Kaw Nation in a public event hosted on Aug. 29 in Watson Park after an all majority vote from the Lawrence City Commission in 2021, followed by the ongoing Sacred Red Rock Project which combined efforts from the Kaw Nation, the University of Kansas as well as the City of Lawrence.
The event featured speakers Vice Chairman of the Kaw Nation James Pepper Henry, Mayor Lisa Larson, Governor Laura Kelly and others and included an official apology from Mayor Larson on behalf of the City of Lawrence and Douglas County.
In the morning of Aug. 29, Lawrence community members, city and state officials and members of the Kaw Nation poured out in attendance, believing in the broad-based significance of this event.
“It’s healing. Healing for both sides; for the settlers, the ancestors, their ancestors and our ancestors. It’s just a healing process,
it’s something that needed to be done,” Kaw Language Director and Teacher Desiree Storm Brave said.
The necessity of this event was clear in the presentation the speakers and participants of the event gave, with an emphasis placed on reconciliation of not only this incident of cultural disregard and violation, but the broader actions and effects that occurred within the history of our city and state.
Additionally, the appreciation the Lawrence community had for the event was clear as well as for many this provided relatively
new knowledge of the history of something they drive by on their daily commute. Others acknowledged the significance of this event as a part of a broader movement for reconciliation.
“This is a continuation… of that… we owe this. This is not anything special. This is duty,” long term community member Bianca Storlazzi said.
Storlazzi believes this to be a part of wider action that is and must continue to occur in attempts to reconcile a broader history.
With reconciliation comes an emphasis on growth for the future, as Mayor Larson emphasized in her speech outlining the goals the city and county are committed to in their current and future relationship with Indigenous groups.
Community member Kim Anspach points out that growth requires acknowledgment of both negative and positive history, and how we must look at and acknowledge the harm and good done by white settlers of our state.
“Really looking from a modern lens at what our history is and what our what our culture as Lawrence is, if we’re going to be free staters and we’re going to continue to make that legacy our identity, we’re going to have to reckon with what that really meant,” Anspach said.
