Brooks: For the first time, Minnesota raises the flags of all 11 tribal nations at the Capitol

Growing up, there was a word in Ojibwe that Faron Jackson heard from his father on the good days. The days when they went together to pick berries, to hunt, to harvest manoomin, also known as wild rice..

Minotaagwad, his father would tell him. It’s a good thing we’re doing today.

On Friday, Jackson, now chairman of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, stood on the grounds of the State Capitol, now home, for the first time ever, to the flags of all 11 of Minnesota’s sovereign tribal nations.

“It’s a good thing we’re doing today,” he told the crowd gathered at the state’s new Tribal Flag Plaza.

Leech Lake’s flag fluttered beside the flags of the Lower Sioux Indian Community, White Earth Nation, Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, Red Lake Nation, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the Upper Sioux Community, Prairie Island Indian Community and Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.

At the foot of each flagpole grew plants sacred to each nation, between flagstones of Minnesota granite, flanked by young white pines that will one day offer shade and shelter from the wind. Creating this plaza — modeled after similar installations in Montana and Oklahoma — has been in the works for years. All part of the ongoing effort to turn the Capitol Grounds into a more welcoming, inclusive space for all. Including the people who were here first.

“This was always Dakota land,” said Kevin Jensvold, tribal chairman of Pezihutazizi Oyate, the Upper Sioux Community. The Dakota people have been here for 10,000 years, “and we’ll be here for 10,000 more.”

Friday was a day of bitter and sweet. A flag raising in a state where flags are lowered in mourning for children murdered in a mass shooting. The young trees that encircled the plaza were planted through the efforts of the assassinated House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman. The Hortman children, Colin and Sophie, joined Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan at the dedication ceremony. Painful history mixed with hope for what could come next.

“Dakota flags are flying over Dakota land,” Walz told the gathering, after prayers and drum circles as the flags rose, one by one, over the Capitol grounds. “And the governor of Minnesota speaks behind a [state] seal we can all be proud of.

The new state seal displays not an Indian being driven off the land, but a loon rising from a lake.

The old state flag was just the old seal on a blue bedsheet — like somebody had decided to take one of the ugliest chapters in state history and run it up the flagpole. On the new flag, the North Star shines over the silhouette of Minnesota and fields of blue.

“Minnesota is a great state,” Walz said. “But great states are able to talk about their entire history. They’re able to talk about the sorrow and the pain and the mistakes that they’ve made.

The tribal flags stand in an arc, facing the Capitol. A daily reminder that Minnesota’s tribes aren’t just part of the state’s history, they’re its future.