Next Thursday in Fort Washakie on the Wind River Indian Reservation, tribal and non-tribal community members will gather together to talk about how to solve the problem of escalating racial tensions in the area. The U.S. Justice Department offered to sponsor the meetings following the shooting of two Northern Arapaho men by a white man last summer at a detox center in Riverton. The forums are part of a four-part curriculum intended to build toward a set of practical goals that the community can agree to implementing.
Sergio Maldonado is the Northern Arapaho Tribal Liaison for Governor Mead, and a committee member working on the forums. Wyoming Public Radio's Melodie Edwards sat down with him on the evening of the second meeting to talk about his own ideas for how racial tensions could be eased in the state’s reservation border towns.
The third of the four part series will be at Fort Washakie this Thursday, February 11, at 6 p.m. at the Wind River Development Fund Office in Fort Washakie.