Plymouth, Massachusetts - As many Americans celebrated Thanksgiving, Indigenous people and allies gathered on Cole's Hill in Plymouth – traditional homelands of the Wampanoag people – to commemorate the National Day of Mourning.

The march and rally took place to mark the genocide of Indigenous Peoples, which began with the arrival of European settlers to Turtle Island (a.k.a. North America) – including the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620.

The annual tradition, practiced since 1970, is a solemn day of mourning, solidarity, and action. It coincides with the American celebration of Thanksgiving, a holiday rooted in the US' devastating legacy of settler-colonialism.

"Once again, on so-called Thanksgiving, the United American Indians of New England and our supporters are gathered on this hill to observe a National Day of Mourning for the Indigenous people murdered by settler-colonialism and imperialism worldwide," said Kisha James, whose grandfather began the tradition.

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In preparation for the day, many participants fasted from sundown Wednesday in honor of their ancestors and their stolen lands. They are challenging the false narratives around Thanksgiving that cast the feast as a show of friendship between white settlers and Indigenous people.

"Some Wampanoag ancestors did greet the Pilgrims and save them from starvation, and what did we, the Indigenous people of this continent, get in return for this kindness? Genocide, the theft of our lands, the destruction of our traditional ways of life, slavery, starvation, and never-ending oppression," James said.

"The Pilgrims are not ancient history, and we cannot allow their crimes to be sanitized and forgotten," she insisted. "That is why year after year, we have gathered on this hill to tear down the Thanksgiving mythology."

During Thursday's rally, calls resounded for the release of 80-year-old freedom fighter Leonard Peltier, the longest-held Indigenous political prisoner in US history, with speakers urging supporters to donate to his cause.

The member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa has spent over 48 years behind bars on trumped-up charges of killing two FBI special agents in a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in so-called South Dakota.

Indigenous advocates and allies have urged US President Joe Biden to grant immediate clemency to Peltier – a step he may take without congressional approval. The calls have amplified after US authorities in July denied Peltier's latest request for parole.

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Peltier himself shared a statement in honor of the Day of Mourning, read by Herbie Waters, who has picked up the tradition from his grandfather.

"They [the colonizers] took our sacred land, and the genocidal fervor of the imperialists continues to this day. Their tactics have changed, but they want to see us annihilated as a people and steal what remains of our traditional land," Peltier warned.

His statement continued: "Our spirit cannot be broken, because we all are one. We are born of Mother Earth, woven with love, dignity, and a freedom they cannot comprehend. Though they have entombed me in concrete and steel, I am a free man. They rounded up our people and put us in concentration camps they call reservations. We remain a free people."

"I send my love and blood as a prisoner of war within the belly of the beast to those who continue the struggle."

Participants on Thursday emphasized their solidarity with the Indigenous people of Palestine, whose liberation struggle continues amid Israel's US-backed genocide in Gaza.

Lea Kayali of the Palestinian Youth Movement told the crowd, "I'm so honored to be here today on the Day of Mourning, because as a Palestinian, every day for the last 419 days has been a day of mourning knowing that the death toll is likely in the hundreds of thousands."

"Genocide – the unforgivable crime – has been wrought against so many of us Indigenous folk. This is the bloodied history that colonizers try to cover up with stories like Thanksgiving and Israeli independence, and today we reject those lies," Kayali said to cheers.

Israel has slaughtered at least 44,330 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, according to the territory's health ministry. The British medical journal Lancet and other experts believe the true number to be far greater, upwards of 186,000 as of July 2024.

The US government has enabled the apartheid regime's crimes with at least $22.76 billion spent on military aid and related operations between October 7, 2023, and September 30, 2024.

"We deserve so much more than this capitalist armageddon," Kayali said. "Today, I feel in my body that I am surrounded by the folk who stare into this machinery of death and who extend a hand into the gears to hold ours as Palestinians, to say, 'We have been here too, and we will only emerge together.'"

"Our decolonization is a global people's resistance that will not stop until the sunrise of freedom warms every inch of this earth from the long night of repression."