Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization. This essay first appeared on his Substack column.

When folks like me call out what we see as a profound danger to our society, as it appears that our government is turning against entire segments of our community, stripping or reducing the rights of select groups of people who are our neighbors, there are those who claim we are alarmists sowing discontent; that we are modern day “Chicken Littles,” going around declaring that the sky is falling.

On December 27, the Quad City Times published its list of “top 10 Iowa stories of 2024.” One look at the list offers more than ample justification for the warnings I and so many others have offered about the current state of our state and the troubling prospects of what lies ahead for Iowa and the nation over the next four years. A whopping seven out of these ten top stories are matters of serious concern for Iowa’s social justice advocates.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

On October 14, the state of Iowa observes Indigenous Peoples’ Day, in recognition of the roles native tribes have played in the state’s history and culture. It’s not a federal holiday, but an increasing number of states and cities now observe it instead of Columbus Day, the traditional name for the mid-October holiday. (Governor Kim Reynolds made the change in Iowa in 2018.)

October 11 was the anniversary of another notable event in Iowa history: on that day in 1842, the Sauk and Fox tribes signed a treaty ceding to the United States a large chunk of central and southern Iowa, including what is now Greene County. (The term “Sac and Fox” is a designation historically employed by the American government. A more accurate term is “Sauk/Meskwaki.”)

Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

Governor Kim Reynolds came to Beit Shalom, the home of the Quad Cities Jewish community, on May 15 to sign House File 2545, a bill containing controversial new social studies curriculum requirements.

Why Beit Shalom? Because the bill requires Iowa schools to teach Holocaust education, following the model of Illinois, which has required it for several years.

Though members of the Quad Cities Jewish community are divided about the policies of the governor and the Republican-controlled legislature, we do stand united on the issue of Holocaust education in our schools. According to FBI statistics for the past several years, more than 50 percent of religion-based acts of hate in the U.S. targeted the Jewish community, more than all the other faith groups put together. Since the atrocities of the Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, the number of antisemitic attacks in the U.S. has more than tripled.

John Clayton grew up on a farm in Poweshiek County, which he now farms. During his childhood, going to Meskwaki Pow-Wows in neighboring Tama County was the highlight of each summer. He is a 2024 candidate for Poweshiek County supervisor.

Minnesota officially adopted a new state flag on May 11, replacing the previous design, which had long been criticized for its depiction of a Native American on horseback with a spear and a white pioneer farming with a gun. The flag’s imagery was viewed by many as a symbol of Indigenous defeat and displacement, which was considered offensive by the state’s Dakota and Ojibwe tribes.

Poweshiek County in Iowa uses a caricature of a Native American as its icon. The Poweshiek County Board of Supervisors acknowledged in a public open meeting held on May 6 that the county’s icon caricature isn’t of Chief Poweshiek. 

Statue on Muscatine’s Mississippi riverfront erected in 1926 by the all-white Improved Order of Red Men.

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on June 7, 2023, under the headline “Alexander Clark does RAGBRAI?”

What would Alexander Clark say about Muscatine gearing up for another horde of RAGBRAI visitors in their sweat-drenched thousands?

A stretch of the imagination to wonder such a thing? It’s what I do while researching 19th century newspapers for dots connecting local Black history to—everything.

Clark was more than Equal Rights Champion. He did much to make his hometown better. Movers and shakers patronized his Hair Dressing Saloon, so he knew what was happening. He enjoyed travel, and his marketing sense and public demeanor took him places, especially in later years.

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer concept is by Adam Yee, available via Shutterstock

Jerry Foxhoven is an attorney, child advocate, former law professor, and former director of the Iowa Department of Human Services.

It’s time I admit it publicly: I’m “woke.”

One of my favorite contemporary writers is pastor and author John Pavlovitz. He reminds us often that “Jesus was woke.” He observes that Republicans/Evangelicals like to refer to the Bible a lot but rarely bring up Jesus. Here is what Pavlovitz says about that:

Iowa is tied for seventh among states with the highest disparities in Black incarceration rates, according to new analysis from the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative. Data released on September 27 show Black Iowans are about nine times more likely than whites to be in prison or jail, and Native Americans are about thirteen times more likely than whites to be incarcerated in Iowa.

Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP, said in a statement that the findings “underscore the need for systemic reform.” She called on Iowa to “take action in every facet of the justice process.”

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Ever wonder why our Midwestern rural layout consists of 36 one-mile-square sections per township? Or where the Midwest’s emphasis on public education comes from? Or why slavery never gained a foothold here? Or why so many of the federal Bill of Rights protections were guaranteed in the Midwest even before their adoption in the Constitution?

No? Well, no problem. I’m gonna tell you anyway.

All those practical and admirable attributes originated in a series of ordinances way back in the 1780s, adopted by the Congress that was created by the Articles of Confederation during the Revolutionary War.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

By the time you read this, Native American Heritage Month will be almost over. I admit I missed most of it again this year, too. I wouldn’t have known except for seeing a banner on the Washington Post website, calling special attention to Native American articles during November.

Why is there so little education in the U.S. about Native Americans? Possible causes include ignorance, oversight, pedagogy obstacles, and fear. Undoubtedly, it’s a blend.

News under the Native American heading often relates to changing offensive school mascots and team names, decisions usually prompting considerable controversy. Still, the name changes are a significant step in the right direction. Meanwhile, politicization of this issue underscores the need for education while simultaneously foreshadowing challenges facing advocates of a more inclusive curriculum.

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.

Drumming and singing and chanting are background sound for writing this column. Video streaming from the 106th annual Meskwaki Powwow shows colorfully attired modern Iowans stepping rhythmically together, everyone off the bleachers between solo dances of various styles and meanings.

Near Tama, just off the Lincoln Highway, the Meskwaki Nation settlement is distinct because their settlers weren’t immigrants from Europe or elsewhere across oceans. They came from natives who were here when the rest of us arrived.

Coinciding with our big state fair, the pleasant little festival reminds us our “beautiful land between the rivers” is a crazy quilt of distinct ethno-historical communities—however some pieces fade and however melting-potted our strip malls.

The U.S. Department of Interior announced on September 8 that its Board on Geographic Names voted to approve new names “for nearly 650 geographic features” formerly containing the word “squaw,” including six creek segments in Iowa.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve in that role, created a Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force last year. Its first project was to find replacement names for geographic features on federal lands bearing the term squaw, which “has historically been used as an offensive ethnic, racial, and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women.”

The task force identified seven features in Iowa among a nationwide list of more than 660, and proposed alternate names for consideration in February. After working through thousands of public comments, the task force finalized the replacement names, which are listed here.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

A product with deep Iowa connections recently reached the century mark: the ice cream treat now known as “Edy’s Pie”, which, until a year ago, was called Eskimo Pie.

An outgrowth of the George Floyd tragedy has been increased awareness of racial stereotypes that have existed for decades. Eskimo Pie’s owner sought to abandon a word considered derogatory by its association with non-Native colonizers who settled in the Arctic and used the term. Although some changes, like this one, happened recently, others have been under consideration for many years.

Sometime during the fall of 1621, white European settlers at Plymouth held a harvest feast, attended by some Wampanoag, one of the Indigenous peoples living in the area. Almost everything else you learned about that “first Thanksgiving” was wrong.

The Pilgrims didn’t invite the Wampanoag to share their bounty. Some historians now believe the Native men came because they heard gunshots and assumed the settlement was under attack. (They had formed an alliance with the European settlers in the spring of 1621.) Another theory is that the warriors showed up “as a reminder that they controlled the land the Pilgrims were staying on and they vastly outnumbered their new European neighbors.”

According to Thanksgiving myths, the Pilgrims expressed gratitude for Wampanoag who taught them how to grow or find food in their new surroundings. In reality, “Their role in helping the Pilgrims survive by sharing resources and wisdom went unacknowledged that day, according to accounts of the toasts given by Pilgrim leaders.”

Elizabeth Marilla is a mental health worker, writer, picture taker, hiker, and mom living in rural southeast Iowa. Connect with her on instagram @iowa.underfoot. -promoted by Laura Belin

I was born and raised in Iowa, but moved away at 18 without having learned much of anything about the natural history of Iowa, the history of Euroamerican settler colonialism in Iowa, the history and modern day presence of Indigenous/Native communities in Iowa, many members of whom are among the most passionate protectors of Iowa’s natural resources. Remember, for example, the Meskwaki Nation’s early leadership fighting the portion of the Dakota Access Pipeline running through Iowa, long before broad public attention was drawn to the project.

While hiking this spring I noticed that many parks and preserves are named for or include plaques honoring the mostly white landowners who either sold or gifted the land to the public or the trust, but most feature no education about who was here before that. The Johnson County Conservation board has recently expressed willingness to initiate a project to support learning and unlearning around Iowa history at the sites they manage and on their website, which I hope will center Indigenous voices.

Many of the southeast Iowa sites pictured below are located on lands held by the Meskwaki and Sauk Nations at the time of Euroamerican colonial settlement, as is my own home. One very small way to initiate some learning might be to cross-reference your own map with this one, created by the Historic Indian Location Database project, when visiting Iowa parks and preserves.

Tom Witosky is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and was a longtime investigative reporter for the Des Moines Register. -promoted by Laura Belin

Much has been written about U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and her most recent apology about her Native American heritage claim.

The Massachusetts senator opened her presentation at last month’s Native American presidential forum in Sioux City by acknowledging that the controversy over her claims of Cherokee heritage had caused harm.