Flagstaff City Council set to begin meetings with acknowledgment of ancestral Indigenous homelands

The Flagstaff City Council is poised to begin each meeting with an acknowledgment of the ancestral homelands of Native tribes in the region. Council members last week voiced support for having the acknowledgement statement read at the beginning of future meetings. The Arizona Daily Sun reports that a formal vote is scheduled Tuesday. The council’s meeting agenda said the acknowledgement would “reflect on the attempted erasure of Indigenous peoples and the historic trauma caused by colonialism” in order to promote understanding and dispute resolution. Flagstaff is on the outskirts of the Navajo Nation. Several other tribes also have reservations in northern Arizona.