Sam Adams of Portland Oregon has spent more than 25 years advocating for the city’s artists, people who lack have easy access to arts and culture offerings, and arts education. As mayor, a city council member, and government staffer. While serving as chief of staff for then-mayor Vera Katz, on her behalf, Sam Adams initiated an effort that led to repatriation of, giving back, a Native American artifact owned by the City of Portland. Since 1910, the large stone covered with ancient petroglyphs had sat outside an entrance to Portland’s city hall, accompanied by a plaque stating it had been a gift to the city from a local railroad. Suspecting that the stone had not been given freely by whoever it originally belonged to, Mr. Adams dug into the historic mystery. He learned that the artifact was actually a sacred stone belonging to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) and immediately initiated a plan to return it to its rightful owners. With the strong support of Mayor Katz and work of the mayor’s ombudsman, and under the aegis of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the city returned the stone to the CTUIR in a 1996 ceremony. Today, the stone is the centerpiece of the Nix-Ya-Wii Warriors Memorial on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Mission, Oregon.
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Sam Adams of Portland
Sam Adams has cofounded several charitable organizations dedicated to solving problems related to sustainability and education. Archives
August 2018
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