For the last three years on the day after Thanksgiving, PLTS students have joined the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust’s Shellmound to Shellmound Walk through West Berkeley and Emeryville, CA calling for the sacred burial sites of the Chochenyo Ohlone People to be returned to their ancestors. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous Land to Indigenous people.

PLTS students in the Concentration in Climate Justice and Faith first encountered the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust at our annual retreat in 2022. We were fortunate to have Corinna Gould from the land trust join us for a presentation on the history of Indigenous people in California, particularly the history of the Chochenyo Ohlone people on whose unceded land the original PLTS seminary was built. Students were especially interested to learn about the work the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust has done to reclaim their ancestor’s sacred burial grounds in West Berkeley. These sacred burial sites called Shellmounds were several stories tall and once dotted the entire San Francisco Bay. Before it was desecrated by developers, the West Berkeley Shellmound sat where Strawberry Creek meets the San Francisco Bay. Strawberry Creek is the same creek that runs underneath the current PLTS campus in culverts.

After hearing from the land trust during the 2022 retreat, students were moved to get involved with the organization’s work to return Indigenous Land to Indigenous hands. On the day after Thanksgiving for the last three years, students have joined a Shellmound to Shellmound Walk led by the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. Walking from the site of the West Berkeley Shellmound to a shopping mall in Emeryville, CA where another Shellmound once stood, PLTS students joined hundreds of people in calling for the site of the West Berkeley Shellmound to be returned to Chochenyo Ohlone People.

After years of activism from the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and other Indigenous leaders, the West Berkeley Shellmound was returned to Indigenous stewardship in March 2024. The annual Shellmound to Shellmound Walk has continued to grow as the land trust’s movement to return Indigenous Land to Indigenous hands expands.

In addition to joining the Shellmound to Shellmound Walks, PLTS students have used student association funds to give Shuumi Land Tax, a voluntary annual financial contribution that non-Indigenous people living on the Confederated Villages of Lisjan’s territory can make to support the critical work of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. Learn more about the ongoing work of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust at www.sogoreate-landtrust.org.