Songs of celebration herald Seattle’s fourth annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Mariana Harvey of the Yakama Nation leads a song of the people as a part of the Indigenous People’s Day celebration at Daybreak Star Center in Seattle on Oct. 9. Harvey provides program management for the Native Youth Leadership Alliance. (Photo by Taylor McAvoy)

People from tribal communities from across the Pacific Northwest marked Indigenous Peoples’ Day with a celebratory march through Seattle and ended with an evening gathering at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center.

This year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day was the fourth since the city council’s unanimous 2014 approval of a resolution to rename Columbus Day. That decision represented three years of effort on the part of local First People activists and the legislation’s drafters, and it followed the lead of other cities that changed the Columbus Day holiday to honor Native Americans.

The Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center is a Native American cultural community center for people of all tribes. Before 1970, the center had been known as the Fort Lawton military base. Native American activists staged a non-violent takeover and occupation of the land, and completed the cultural center in 1977.