Our People Believe in Education: The Unlikely Alliance of the Miami Tribe and Miami University

Across the United States, many institutions are striving to acknowledge and repair oppressive pasts and unequal presents, even as Indigenous communities are struggling to reclaim and revitalize the philosophies and knowledges of their elders. Our People Believe in Education explores the stories of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and Miami University to show how two organizations with almost nothing in common, aside from the name Miami, have collaborated to support Indigenous language and cultural revitalization. Founded in 1809, Miami University is a midsize public university in Oxford, Ohio, on land that once belonged to the Miami Tribe. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma was, like many tribal nations, forcibly removed from its homelands and is now headquartered in northeast Oklahoma. Cameron M. Shriver and Bobbe Burke provide a reflective examination of why a relationship developed between the two entities despite significant geographical and ideological hurdles, and how that partnership has evolved since 1972, when Myaamia chief Forest Olds first visited Miami’s university campus in his nation’s homeland. This intimate history of a tribe and a university struggling to reconcile colonial education with Indigenous survival offers a jumping-off point for new conversations in, and between, these two spheres.