Second People’s Planning Forum at Nanih Bvlbancha
City Park is located on Indigenous territories. How should this fact shape the park of the future?
On May 24, Grow Dat hosted our second People’s Planning Forum for City Park at Nanih Bvlbancha, a new Indigenous mound on the Lafitte Greenway. Before the event, participants were invited to learn more about local Indigenous histories, cultures, and organizing as well as examples of land back and examples of Indigenous land sovereignty from Canada and the Bay Area. Check out the resource list if you’re interested!
Grow Dat youth welcomed everyone and introduced the question for the evening. Dr Tammy Greer and Monique Verdin, both members of the Nanih Bvlbancha build team, rooted us in some stories, histories, and future visions of this place. They offered Indigenous perspectives on the interconnectedness of human life with land and water, and explained the Chahta (Choctaw) name for this territory: Bvlbancha, meaning “place of many languages.” Grounding in the idea of the Nanih Bvlbancha mound as a kind of neutral ground, we turned our attention to the question of Indigenous sovereignty and City Park.
We invited participants to consider the teachings from our speakers, learnings about Indigenous sovereignty work in our city and region, and the examples from other cities and countries to brainstorm and discuss the question - City Park is on Indigenous territories. How should this fact shape the park of the future?
We gathered in diverse groups to spend about 45 minutes in discussion before sharing out on the mic in the whole group. We enjoyed hearing everyone’s ideas while watching a beautiful sunset behind the Nanih Bvlbancha.
We’ve distilled the conversations and written material from the evening into some key findings. You can read a transcript of the group share out here. At each planning forum, we’re also asking participants to answer the prompt “What do you love about City Park? What would you change?” You can see this forum’s responses here.
We hope to see you at our next People’s Planning Forum on Friday, June 21 at VOTE, where we’ll be thinking through the legacy of enslavement and Black resistance on the City Park land. Come join this important conversation as we root in the past to envision the future of our public spaces.
