11/27/2025
Our Tacoma and Bremerton offices will be closed on Thursday 12/27 and Friday 12/28 for Thanksgiving and in honor of the National Day of Mourning.
While Thanksgiving is a celebration of gratitude or heritage for some, it marks the National Day of Mourning for many Native people. The National Day of Mourning is observed by Native communities as a day of remembrance and protest. It started in 1970, when Wampanoag leader Wamsutta Frank James was set to give a Thanksgiving speech in Plymouth, Massachusetts to commemorate the Mayflower landing. In his speech, he acknowledged the injustices Native people faced at the hands of European settlers. When the event planners did not let him say his speech and asked him to rewrite it, James declined and the National Day of Mourning was created in protest and as a counter-commemoration.
Now, Native Americans from various tribes around New England recognize this day by gathering in Cole Hill Massachusetts to acknowledge the violence their communities experienced at the hands of colonizers – including sexual violence – and to celebrate the fact that this violence did not succeed in exterminating their tribes and customs.
Pictured here are activists marching during the National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on November 25, 2021. (Getty Images, Bryan R. Smith)
Even though our offices are closed, our Advocates are always available through our 24/7 Helpline for those in need of support. Call anytime, day or night, at 1-855-757-7273.
Prefer not to call? You can also chat with an Advocate confidentially from 8am - 8pm, 7 days a week by going to our website and clicking “Chat Live”. Advocates are also available 24/7 via email at Advocacy@rebuildinghope.org
Sources: https://www.thinkgl obalhealth.org/article/remembering-honoring-and-educating-national-day-mourning
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/24/us/native-americans-national-day-of-mourning
