Interior Department Secretary Tours Riverside Indian School

Oklahomans told their boarding school stories on Saturday as part of the Secretary of The Interior Department’s year-long tour called "The Road to Healing." Her first stop on the tour was Riverside Indian School in Anadarko.

For some in the crowd, their visit to the school brought back memories.

“I spent 12 years in this hell hole and that’s what it was like, hell,” said Donald Neconie, Kiowa tribal citizen.

Donald Neconie admitted Riverside had changed but said his 12 years at the school were at a time when Native children were taken from their homes and stripped of their tribal and cultural identities.

“Told me I was no longer allowed to use my name,” said a boarding school survivor. “I was given a number; my number was 199.”

Haaland listened to every speaker and told them she too was a descendant of Indian boarding school survivors.

“We need to tell our stories,” said Deb Haaland, U.S. Sec. Interior Department. “Today is part of that journey.”

Haaland commissioned a study into the 400 schools the federal government either operated or supported for more than a century. Haaland's report showed many children never made it back home. Those who did suffer from deep trauma.

“I entered the boarding school system 56 years ago and I could have lost my language,” said a boarding school survivor. “But I retained it because my mother never spoke English.”

Her story was much like the others. Their hair was cut, their clothes taken and shuffled into dorms to "assimilate" to a different way of life, as some described.

Everyone who spoke is on the same journey and their words were recorded for history.

“We mourn what we have lost,” said Haaland. “Please know that we still have so much to gain.”

Haaland's year-long tour will take her across the country. Her next stops will be in Hawaii, Michigan, Arizona, and South Dakota.