Medicine River (Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freethought Radio podcast)

After we cover state/church news around the country, FFRF Senior Litigation Counsel Sam Grover recounts FFRF’s recent victory stopping the Ten Commandments from being posted in Texas public schools. 

Then, journalist Mary Annette Pember, a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe, describes her new book Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools.

Interview: 

https://ffrf.org/news/freethought-radio/freethought-today-august-21-2025/

 

‘A supermarket for sexual predators’: abuse scandal at elite boarding school shakes France

"My mother wanted to get me away from Bordeaux so we begged the Bétharram school principal for a place. To persuade him, I told him about the abuse I'd endured, including the horrible detail that my attacker always handed me an envelope containing 50 French francs [the equivalent of €7, or £6]." 

Six months after Boris was admitted to Bétharram, the same school principal, Pierre Silviet-Carricart, a priest, called him into his office on his 14th birthday and sexually assaulted him, he said. "Then he handed me an envelope containing 50 francs," Boris said. "The cynicism and cruelty of that …"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/01/abuse-scandal-boarding-school-france-betharram

 

‘Pure Hell’: The Painful Legacy of Boarding Schools for Native Americans. - The New York Times

The schools were designed to erase the children's tribal ties and cultural practices. Children were given new names, forcibly converted to Christianity and punished for speaking their Native languages. Many were physically and sexually abused. 

 A report released in July by the Interior Department identified by name nearly 19,000 children who attended the schools between 1819 and 1969, though it acknowledged that there were more. At least 973 children died at the schools and were buried at 74 sites, 21 of which were unmarked, the report said. 

 Congress funded the schools through annual appropriations and by selling land held by tribes. The government also hired Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and Congregationalist associations to run schools, regardless of whether they had experience in education.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/us/us-indian-boarding-schools-history.html

More than 900 Native American children died while at Indian boarding schools in U.S. - The Washington Post

The Washington Post, in a year-long investigation published in May, found at least 122 priests, sisters and brothers assigned to 22 boarding schools since the 1890s were later accused of sexually abusing Native American children under their care. Most of the documented abuse occurred in the 1950s and 1960s and involved more than 1,000 children...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/07/30/indian-boarding-schools-native-americans/

Native American children endured years of sexual abuse at boarding schools - Washington Post

 "He said if I ever told anybody that I would go to hell," Jay recalled. 

Geraldine Charbonneau Dubourt was one of nine sisters who said they were sexually or physically abused by priests at an Indian boarding school in Marty, S.D. She said that she was 16 when a Catholic priest repeatedly raped her in a church basement and that a doctor and several Catholic sisters later forced her to undergo an abortion…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/sexual-abuse-native-american-boarding-schools/

U.S. created Indian boarding schools to destroy cultures and seize land - Washington Post

From 1819 to 1969, the U.S. government separated Native American children from their families to eradicate their cultures, assimilate them into White society and seize tribal land…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/american-indian-boarding-schools-history-legacy/

Owners of Lighthouse Christian Academy arrested for alleged kidnapping

Larry and Carmen Musgrave, the owners of a Christian boarding school in Piedmont, Missouri, are now sitting in jail after being charged with kidnapping a former student. 

It’s not the first time a Christian boarding school in Missouri has come under fire for alleged bad behavior. In the past several years, there have been investigations into the “Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch and Boarding School” and Agape Boarding School in the same state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcwJL3CwKXI

My relatives went to a Catholic school for Native children. It was a place of horrors

…I ask my relative what justice would look like. There's a pause. He tells me he's not interested in apologies. The school, he says, was a "child brothel" when he was there, and it deserves to be remembered for such atrocities. He would like to see St Joseph's "turned into a school run for and by Native people" not for the profit of the church…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/30/my-relatives-went-to-a-catholic-school-for-native-children-it-was-a-place-of-horrors