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President Obama pledges to do better by our ‘first Americans’

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President Visit
President Obama pledges to do better by our ‘first Americans’ community center on March 4.

President visits Choctaw Nation to unveil new program and meet with Choctaw youth

By Ronni Pierce
Choctaw Nation

Chief Gary Batton, the Choctaw Nation, and the city of Durant were host to a historic event on July 15. Tribal youth and elders were invited to join the Chief, Council, and community members to hear first-hand as President Barack Obama announced a new initiative that will ensure digital opportunities for all Americans. ConnectHome will expand high-speed broadband Internet services to families in the Choctaw Nation and 27 other communities across the country.

After taking the stage and shouting out an enthusiastic “Halito!” to nearly 1,000 people gathered in the Durant High School, the president thanked Chief Batton and the other tribal leaders for their attendance. The president acknowledged the fact that some American communities “have been neglected and fallen behind. And as part of that, I said we’re going to do better by our first Americans.

“Now, we can’t reverse centuries of history—broken treaties, broken promises. But I did believe that we could come together as partners and forge a new path based on trust and respect.”

He spoke of naming the Choctaw Nation as one of America’s first Promise Zones a little over a year ago. The Promise Zone areas are where the federal government teams with local communities and businesses to create economic development and to jump-start job creation, expand educational opportunities, increase affordable housing, and improve public safety.

The ConnectHome initiative will take the Promise Zone designation even further.ConnectHome will use partnerships to bring broadband, technical assistance, and digital literacy training to students living in public and assisted housing across America, according to the White House.

Chief Batton said, “The ConnectHome initiative is about helping our people who are in poverty-stricken areas, to help them gain access to broadband Internet because so many of our tribal members do not have access to the world like everyone else does. And so in our low-income housing and in our elderly living sites that’s what this is going to be about—to help them get an education and to find employment. “The ConnectHome initiative will link our homes to a world beyond southeastern Oklahoma, and tie our lives to greater opportunities.”

The president and HUD Secretary Julián Castro announced 27 cities and the Choctaw Nation will participate in ConnectHome.

The communities were selected through a competitive process that took into account local commitment to expanding broadband opportunities.

Prior to the event, President Obama and Chief Batton met with a group of Native youth and discussed the recent White House Tribal Youth Gathering and opportunities for young Native boys and girls. The president called out to 16-year-old Kelsey Janway in the audience. Janway is a member of the Choctaw Youth Council who represented the Choctaw Nation at the White House. President Obama made note that her family could only get phone reception at their home in Heavener if they stood on a certain rock. She laughingly agreed and many of the audience who were from rural areas were nodding their heads in understanding. The president emphasized that kids like Kelsey have big dreams, that we need to invest in those dreams through advancing technology in rural and low-income areas. He said, “When we make those commitments to all of our children, the great thing about it is the blessings are returned back to us—because you end up having a workforce that is better educated, which means suddenly companies want to locate, which means businesses start booming, which means businesses start hiring, which means everybody does better.”

This is only the second Native American community President Obama has visited during his term in office. In June 2014 the president visited the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in North Dakota. And this is only the second time a sitting president has visited this community. President Theodore Roosevelt passed through Durant during a whistle stop tour on his way to San Antonio in 1905. President Obama’s visit last week is the first time a current president has made an official visit to our tribal nation.


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