Honor Indigenous servicemembers who lost their lives while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Join the museum for a film screening, book talk, and book signing. Visitors are welcome to pay their respects and remember loved ones at the National Native American Veterans Memorial on the museum grounds.

Level 1: Rasmuson Theater

2 PM: Film screening

• The Warrior Tradition tells the astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why would Indigenous men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands? (Director: Lawrence R. Hott, USA, 2019, 56 min.)

3 PM: Book talk

• Co-author Alexandra N. Harris will discuss the conception and creation of the book Why We Serve: Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces. The book chronicles the generations of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians who have served in the United States Armed Forces during every military conflict since the country’s founding. The book features seldom-told stories of Native service as well as a wealth of images, including sketches, photographs, contemporary art, and objects from the museum’s collections. This groundbreaking history honors the diversity of Indigenous people and the complexity of their experiences. In doing so, it challenges stereotypes commonly applied to Native servicemembers and pays tribute to the men and women whose contributions have shaped America’s wars—and the country’s history.

3:30 PM: Book signing

• Alex Harris will be available outside the Rasmuson Theater to sign copies of Why We Serve: Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces. Books will be available for purchase in the Roanoke Museum Store on Level 2.

Photo credit: WNED-TV, Buffalo/Toronto and Florentine Films/Hott Productions, Inc.

Major funding provided by The Boeing Company.