This week on Calling in the Healers, I sit down with Travis Campbell (Cherokee, Choctaw, Delaware), Director of the Haskell Cultural Center & Museum, to reflect on the transformation of Haskell - from a federal boarding school built to erase Native identities, to a living space where students from 574 tribes gather to celebrate culture, language, and community.
We talk about:
- What sovereignty looks like at the institutional level — why it matters for Native nations to run their own museums and cultural centers.
- Sustaining cultural institutions: the challenges of funding, staffing, and long-term planning in Native-led spaces.
- The treasures and responsibilities held at the Haskell Cultural Center & Museum — from 700-year-old pottery to student yearbooks that help families trace ancestry.
- The “Haskell Rebellion” of 1919 and what it teaches us about resilience, resistance, and identity.
- Mixed identity, family heritage, and the privilege and challenge of navigating how others perceive you.
- Navigating bureaucracy as a survival skill for underfunded communities — asking for help, adapting, and finding creative solutions.
- The need for more spaces in Lawrence to practice solution-oriented dialogue and listen deeply across differences.
