West Berkeley Shellmound WOW

SUPER WOW !!

This is a big deal

 

From the San Francisco Chronicle 3-13-24

 

The city of Berkeley has reached a landmark agreement with the developer who owns a parking lot atop a sacred Ohlone site to transfer the land permanently back to Indigenous peoples after years of litigation and community outcry.

 

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, which recently received a $20 million donation from a private foundation, will contribute $25.5 million of the cost, while Berkeley will put up $1.5 million. The Berkeley City Council voted unanimously, 7-0, to approve the deal on Tuesday.

 

The site has become a symbol of the national effort to make reparations to Native American communities amid growing consciousness about the country’s colonial history and brutal dispossession of land inhabited by Indigenous peoples.

 

Corrina Gould, the Ohlone leader who spearheaded the effort to return the land, has developed a plan for the area that includes exposing the creek nearby, creating open space with native plants, and building a 40-foot-tall mound covered with poppies that will house an educational and memorial component.

 

Save the West Berkeley Shellmound and Village Site

 

July 4 2019 Demonstration and Prayer