Akwesasne Museum and Cultural Center celebratees 40 years

The Akwesasne Library, Museum and Cultural Center celebrated 40-years of serving the Akwesasne community last Thursday night with a reception held onsite to honor the history of the building, staff and board. Irving Papineau the president of the board of directors provided a presentation on the history of the building and programs that it houses. Glory Cole, the Akwesasne Library Executive Director talked about the upgrades to the current building and Sue Ellen Herne also made a presentation on where they hope to go for the future.

“We have upgraded our facilities over the years and have new features to the building like the bike racks out front and the new awnings,” said Cole. “Inside with the technology upgrades we have wireless Internet for people with lap tops and we have new security cameras setup at the entrances and the SRMT is helping us to setup 12 new computers and a SMARTboard.”

The library portion of the Akwesasne Cultural Center is part of the Ontario Library System and the Clinton/Essex/Franklin County system that allows for books to be rotated between those systems. If one library does not have a book in their system they can contact another within that network to have it transferred in for library patrons. Staff at the library have been sorting through historical documents and have been putting together a list of everyone that has been involved either as staff or on the board of directors for the entire 40-year history of the program.

“We have a lot of heritage to maintain here at the Akwesasne Library,” said Cole. “Our librarians all attend training to keep up with the current trends with libraries.”

“We also have climate control in the museum,” said Herne of the Museum portion of the building. “All three councils came on board with bringing the Wolf Belt back to Akwesasne and storing it here. There was a review of facilities to see where the best place would be to house it and this is where they chose to keep the belt.”

Over the past year there has been a concerted effort in determining what the needs would be for Akwesasne now and well into the future for storage of historical and cultural artifacts. Input from the community has been gathered from different information sessions and survey where a lot of information was provided. This would bring the museum up from the basement onto the ground level and provide easier access for community members. The initial thinking would be to include an archival facility with the museum to store historic documents from the three councils within Akwesasne.

“In the past 40-years we have worn out 3 book-mobiles,” said Irving Papineau who has been on the Board of Directors since 1972. “It is appropriate to look back and see how it all started.”

History of the Akwesasne Library, Museum and Cultural Center

The development of the Akwesasne Cultural Center first began as a result of the education boycott that was held in 1968. The boycott was a catalyst to correct the local school systems at the time and this program created a paradigm shift for people to start asking critical questions. With assistance from St. Lawrence University, the Chiefs and Councils of the time and the community support with people discussing next steps the Akwesasne Cultural Center project began.

Other services that started as a result of that 1968 boycott were tutoring services at the St. Regis Mohawk School to help students learn. Through this process needs started to be identified for different support services to help with education and the library was among those ideas.

St. Lawrence University at the time only had one graduate from Akwesasne and that was Ernie Benedict who graduated in the 1940’s. Together the University and Ernie Benedict helped to bring students together to change the way the education system worked. There was also a lot of hard work from many other people in Akwesasne to bring in other programs.

At the start of the Akwesasne Cultural Center the operation was inconsistent from year to year as many of the staff would be laid off until additional funding could be found and then brought back in to work again. Some of the current programs like the Right to Read and GED programs all stemmed from the battle fought for our education system back then. Many of the changes mentioned had to happen at the legislative level because New York State had no wording in their policies about dealing with Haudenosaunee people in many areas.

Eventually the atmosphere changed at the local school districts like Salmon River Central School, where new teachers were required to attend a multi-day orientation on Mohawk Culture. Many of the original documentation used in that time to teach the new teachers about accepting the cultural difference of their students can be found at the Akwesasne Library now in their reference section.

On January 17, 1972 the Tribal Council approved of the following individuals to serve as the original board of directors at the Akwesasne Cultural Center:

For One Year Term:

Rosemary Bonaparte

Barbara Barnes

Donald Cook (deceased)

Vaughn Aldrich

Irving Papineau

For Two Year Terms:

Joseph H. Pyke (deceased)

Cecelia Cook

Selena Smoke

Lawrence Herne (deceased)

John Cook (deceased)

For Three Year Terms:

Ella Peters (deceased)

Thomas V. Herne

Diane Lazore

Jacob Cook (deceased)

Stillman Cook (deceased)

Honorary Member:

Dr. Robert N. Wells, Jr.

Some of these original members have passed on, but their children still remain active on the board of directors. At the time Akwesasne was chosen as one of three sites to receive grants to build facilities like this, the others being the Navajo Community College and at Standing Rock for the Sioux. Out of all three sites the Akwesasne Cultural Center is the only one still operating while adapting and embracing technology to help the people in the community despite annual budget cuts.

“Althought I might not be here in another 40-years from now I know that the Akwesasne Cultural Center will still be thinking and dreaming of doing big things in the community as they try to meet community needs,” said Papineau. “It has been an interesting journey and we will be continuing the legacy because information is a powerful thing.”