They tried to take the Indian out of the child.
That was the plan. That was the system.
But they didn’t understand —
you can’t take the sacred out of someone
whose spirit was braided by the land,
whose songs echo the ancestors,
whose first blanket was the sky.
Orange Shirt Day began with one small voice —
but it carried the weight of generations.
Her name is Phyllis Webstad.
A survivor.
When she was just six years old,
her grandmother gave her a brand-new orange shirt —
bright, beautiful, full of love.
It was her first day of residential school.
But when she got there,
they stripped it away.
No shirt. No language. No warmth.
Just silence, fear, and walls that swallowed childhood.
That orange shirt became a symbol.
Not just of what was taken from her —
but of what was taken from thousands of our children.
You see, Orange Shirt Day isn’t just a day.
It’s a remembering. A reckoning. A return.
It says: Every Child Matters —
those who made it home, and those who didn’t.
It says: We still wear our colors proudly.
We still speak our languages.
We still dance.
We still pray.
We still rise.
And on September 30th,
we wear orange to carry their memory,
to honour their spirits,
to say to the world:
We are still here.
And we will never be silent again.
Tâpwê, nîcimosak.
—Kanipawit Maskwa
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
