Minnesota marches honor missing and murdered Indigenous people
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Hundreds of people gathered Saturday at the Minneapolis American Indian Center to bring attention to the high numbers of Indigenous people who have gone missing or been murdered.
The crowd observed a moment of silence at the start of the day’s program. A minute or so passed before Nicole Matthews, longtime leader of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, asked for people to call out the names of their loved ones who have been murdered, or gone missing.
An elder from Red Lake Nation, Willamette Morrison, was the first to call out a name — that of her daughter Delma Hardy.
For more than a minute, other people in the crowd called out the names of their loved ones.
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“We know that there are many more names that maybe we’re holding really close to our hearts, and maybe it was too hard to say their names, but we know that they’re with us,” Matthews told the gathering.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Day of Remembrance is held each Feb. 14. The day brings awareness to the epidemic of Indigenous people who have gone missing or have been murdered.
Data collected by the state of Minnesota makes clear that Indigenous people are overrepresented among the state’s missing person cases.
The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reports that 732 Indigenous persons went missing in Minnesota last year, and of that number more than 64 percent were women. In 2025, the average number of Indigenous people in Minnesota who were missing on any one day was 63, according to the BCA.
According to 2024 data from the BCA, American Indians accounted for more than 4 percent of all reported victims of homicide or non-negligent manslaughter in the state. That’s despite American Indians making up only a little more than 1 percent of the population.
Family members speak
During Saturday’s program, Bois Forte elder and artist Sharon Day introduced a group of young people — some dressed as papier-mache deer and wolves, some carrying hand drums — who would later participate in the afternoon march. Together, they opened the event with a pair of honor songs.
“We desire to be loving and kind and respectful and to treat everybody all creation the way that we wish to be treated,” Day said.
Day went on to say that the annual event comes during a difficult time as many people across Minnesota are still reeling from the presence of federal immigration agents in their neighborhoods and communities.
“We’ve also experienced that during these last couple of months of crisis, kindness and goodness and people coming to help us in our community,” Day said.
Family members spoke to the gathering about their murdered or missing loved ones. Minneapolis resident Kathy Mishow and husband Ira led a group of relatives in speaking about their daughter Kateri Mishow, who has been missing for more than 19 years.
“We need to keep her name out there and bring her home,” said Kathy Mishow.
Linda Proulx spoke about her brother Peter Martin, who went missing from his home on the Fond du Lac reservation in early March of 2024.
“Peter is more than a missing person. He’s a son, a brother, and a father,” Proulx said.
Almost a dozen people took the stage to remember Evan Ramon Denny, holding up homemade signs to remember him. The 27-year-old man was one of four people killed in a shooting in Minneapolis last April. Denny’s mother, Natosha White, spoke publicly about her son’s absence for the first time.
“My boy was loved. Every day we try to honor him in some way,” White said.
Robert Lilligren — who leads the Minneapolis-based nonprofit Native American Community Development Institute — praised the families of victims for holding up signs and speaking about their loved ones.
“There was grief, but there was such a sense of gratitude for being in community like this,” he said.
Saturday’s event was sponsored by a dozen Indigenous-led nonprofits and community organizations. Bruce Savage, chair of Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Virgil Wind, chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, attended to share their support. A handful of state and city officials, including state Sen. Mary Kunesh and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, also joined the gathering.
Following the program, people gathered in front of the Minneapolis American Indian Center for a 1-mile march through the Phillips neighborhood. Marchers later returned to share a meal. Marches also took place in Bemidji and Duluth on Saturday.
“Our spirits are heavy, our bodies are tired, our minds are tired,” Matthews, with the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, said at the Minneapolis event. “But I think being together in community also feeds my spirit. It gives me energy, and it gives me life to know that when I look around and I see all these people coming in — we’re here to do this together.”
