Reconciliation Rising is a multimedia project that Margaret Jacobs, former Director of Women’s and Gender Studies, has been working on since the summer of 2018. Together with Lincoln journalist Kevin Abourezk and PhD student Baligh Ben Taleb, Jacobs started this project to “showcase the lives and work of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who are engaged in honestly confronting painful and traumatic histories, promoting meaningful and respectful dialogue between Natives and non-Natives, and creating pathways to reconciliation.”
The latest episode of the project is an interview with business professor Taylor Keen, who has one foot in his father’s Cherokee world and the other in his mother’s Omaha culture. He now spends much of his free time reviving the three sisters—corn, beans, and squash—in his backyard and across the city of Omaha. He calls his practice of growing and harvesting Native staples an act of rematriation.
