Blackhawks reveal new programs reaching out to Native Americans

The Blackhawks announced new initiatives to help educate the general public about the culture of Native peoples. CEO Danny Wirtz described the outreach in a video the team posted online.

The team is working with the Sac and Fox Nation to create programs to keep its Sauk language alive and is working with the Sac and Fox Nation’s education department to start a pair of four-year college scholarships. The leadership scholarship will honor Chief Black Hawk, and the other, an athletic scholarship, is in the name of Native American Olympian Jim Thorpe.

The Blackhawks are also working with the Sac and Fox, Ojibwe and Potawatomi nations to curate an exhibit at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford examining the history of Native peoples in Illinois.

Earlier this month, representatives of the team were invited to the Sac and Fox tribe’s annual Powwow in Stroud, Oklahoma, where a decommissioned Black Hawk helicopter was unveiled as a permanent monument at the tribe’s war memorial.