Detroit Land Acknowledgement (taken from a speech given at AFP Greater Detroit's 2022 National Philanthropy Day Dinner)
This land is special. We must take care of it. This land is old, and we must remember it. This land is borrowed, and we must not forget. This land is borrowed from our country’s indigenous ancestors, and we acknowledge that Detroit occupies the contemporary and ancestral homelands of three Anishinaabe nations of the council of Three Fires: the Ojibwe, the Ottawa, and Potawatomi. Through the treaty of Detroit, the Ojibwe, Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot tribes ceded the land now occupied by the city in 1807. They are here and they are the people where the rivers blend. To them, and their land, we say thank you. And we will not forget.