Sand Creek Massacre Healing Run: Listen while you run/walk

In this file photos from 2014, some 650 members of the Rocky Mountain Annual (regional) Conference (now Mountain Sky AC) and their guests tour the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, near Eads, Colo., on Friday, June 20, 2014. A Methodist clergyman-turned-soldier ordered the 1864 attack against a Cheyenne and Arapaho village, and descendants of the survivors joined in the June 20 pilgrimage. Photo by Sam Hodges, UMNS
In this file photos from 2014, some 650 members of the Rocky Mountain Annual (regional) Conference (now Mountain Sky AC) and their guests tour the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, near Eads, Colo., on Friday, June 20, 2014. A Methodist clergyman-turned-soldier ordered the 1864 attack against a Cheyenne and Arapaho village, and descendants of the survivors joined in the June 20 pilgrimage. Photo by Sam Hodges, UMNS

The General Agencies of The United Methodist Church are calling upon annual conferences, districts, and local churches to join us in solidarity with the descendants of Sand Creek as we journey in a contemplative healing run.

We challenge you all to gather churches together and cumulatively run, walk, or bike 173 miles.

Check out a few resources that you can listen to as you run/walk on this healing journey.

Oral histories of the Sand Creek Massacre from Arapaho and Cheyenne Tribes located in Oklahoma

The episode shares Cheyenne and Arapaho accounts and oral histories from Fred Mosqueda, Blanche White Shield, Colleen Cometsevah, Kendall Collie, Ricky Candy, Tony Cartwright, and Chester Whiteman. They're all members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and descendants of the massacre's victims. Some of these recordings were made in the late 1990s and early 2000s as part of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Sites designation. Listen here.

"The betrayal at Sand Creek" from Colorado Public Radio.

 This CPR "Colorado Matters" episode from 2022 not only tells the story of the Sand Creek Massacre and the exhibit at History Colorado in Denver, but also is a meditation on the tribes' history,               their cultures, and their present-day lives. Listen here.

This content was produced by ResourceUMC.org on May 20, 2025. Contact is Crystal Caviness

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