Sogorea Te’ Timeline

Corrina Gould and Johnella LaRose found Indian People Organizing For Change (IPOC), a grassroots Indigenous activist organization.

IPOC organizes annual Shellmound Walks from sacred site to sacred site around the Bay Area.

IPOC joins Wounded Knee DeOcampo and others in 109 day occupation of Sogorea Te’ village site (see The Reawakening of Sogorea Te’ for full story).

Beth Rose Middleton Manning invites Corrina to a conference about Native land trusts. 

Corrina and Johnella begin to dream of what an Indigenous women led land trust could look like with a bold vision to rematriate pieces of the East Bay. Inspired by the occupation in 2011, they decide to name it Sogorea Te’.

Corrina and Johnella host annual Sogorea Te’ Anniversary gatherings on the land.

IPOC joins the No Sainthood for Serra Campaigns to protest the Catholic Church’s canonization of Father Junipero Serra.

Corrina partners with Winemum Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk to host the first annual Run for Salmon.

A small team begins working on a website and developing the Shuumi Land Tax.

On November 22, 2015, at the cultural arts event Thangs Taken: rethinking thanksgiving, Sogorea Te’ Land Trust launches its website and the Shuumi Land Tax.

Johnella LaRose, Deja Gould and Victoria Montaño attend Standing Rock protest.

Corrina and Johnella host three community dialogue sessions at the Intertribal Friendship House exploring what land means to the Indigenous community and the vision of Sogorea Te’.

Inspired by Standing Rock, Planting Justice gives a quarter acre of land along the Lisjan creek in deep East Oakland to Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, the first piece of land rematriated in Huchiun.

Corrina and Johnella lead a community walk from the land, named Lisjan, to Intertribal Friendship House to celebrate.

Corrina and Johnella have a vision to build a sacred arbor at Lisjan.

Sogorea Te’ becomes a community partner with the Gill Tract Community Farm.

Sogorea Te’ opens an office at the First Congregational Church of Oakland near a village site by what is now called Lake Merritt.

A team of Sogorea Te’ staff and community members sustainably harvest redwoods in Sonoma for the arbor and begin preparing the logs.

Sogorea Te’ purchases and builds out a storage container at Lisjan to begin our community resiliency program Himmetka.

Sogorea Te’ assumes a long-term lease on an urban garden in West Oakland. The garden is named Rammay, west in Chochenyo.

Sogorea Te’ launches Mak Noono Tiirnikma/Our Language Awakens, a Chochenyo language workshop series for Lisjan Ohlone tribal members.

With the help of hundreds of community members, Sogorea Te’ raises the arbor, the first Ohlone ceremonial space in Huchiun in 250 years.

Sogorea Te’ receives 501c3 status and becomes our own non-profit organization.

Sogorea Te’ launches Seeding Hope Speakers Series online.

In response to Covid-19, Sogorea Te’ partners with Bay Cities Produce and Gill Tract Community Farm to distribute boxes of fresh fruit and veggies directly to the doorsteps of community members in need.