News – Religion

�鶹��ý�� Graduate Khara Brown Defies 3% Survival Odds to Uncover Hidden Histories Through Anthropology and Archaeology

miethk — Fri, 02 May 2025 17:21:04 +0000

This story is part of a series celebrating �鶹��ý��’s Spring Commencement 2025 graduates – students who embody the University’s mission to broaden access to exceptional learning opportunities and contribute to the common good.

When Khara Lillian Brown walks across the stage at �鶹��ý��’s Spring Commencement, she’ll be celebrating more than earning her bachelor’s degree in Anthropology – she’ll be celebrating a victory against extraordinary odds.

While in college, Brown was given just a 3% chance to live. Defying that prognosis with courage and determination, she not only survived but thrived, finding her purpose and passion through research, community and storytelling.

Her resilience carried her through multiple surgeries and intensive rehabilitation. Today, she is presenting original research, receiving prestigious scholarships, and exploring the complex history of free and formerly enslaved African American communities.

Maybe I didn’t do as well as I wanted – I’m a perfectionist and hard on myself – but I’ve met people, changed lives, touched people with my story. And that’s all a person can ask for – to be a catalyst for change.” — Khara Brown

A Newark native, Brown majored in Anthropology with minors in Archaeology and Native American and Indigenous Studies. Throughout her time at �鶹��ý��, she combined scholarship with activism, volunteering in the campus Archaeology Lab, co-founding the club LadiesFIRST, and participating in organizations such as the Native American and Indigenous Studies Club and the Coalition for Collective Liberation.

She also helped launch the Women’s Leadership Conference, organized by the University’s Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) Program. At this year’s conference, she was honored with a Triumph Over Trauma Award, recognized before more than 350 high school students, educators, community leaders and artists.

Balancing academics with health challenges wasn’t simple.

In 2015, Khara Brown faced a devastating diagnosis after being hospitalized with catastrophic intestinal failure, leaving her paralyzed and barely able to speak. Doctors told her mother there was a 97% chance of fatality. Brown, determined to survive, whispered: “If God created the world from nothing, imagine what He could do with 3%.”

Reflecting on her journey, she says, “To be able to say that I’m in three honor societies, doing my best, graduating – He obviously did some magic with that 3%.”

But overcoming the odds wasn’t easy.

“Maintaining a steady momentum that allowed for proper mental and physical care was the hardest part,” Brown shares. “Finding that balance between what I want to do and what my body can allow me to do was hard as well. You want to be at the same pace as everyone else, but it’s okay if your path is different.”

Achievements and Future Plans

Brown’s academic work focused on free and formerly enslaved African American communities of the 18th and 19th centuries, research she presented at the Archaeological Society of New Jersey Conference.

With the help of her advisor, Christopher Matthews, Anthropology chairperson, Brown researched and compared three archaeological sites in Northern New Jersey and New York. She also participated in the prestigious working alongside descendants of enslaved people to map the Burial Ground for the Enslaved. This summer, she will continue that work through an internship with Montpelier’s Archaeology Department.

In addition to her archaeological work, Brown deepened her commitment to Indigenous studies through hands-on experiences at the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm, which provides traditional foods for the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lunaape (Lenape) Nation. The tribe can no longer safely farm its ancestral land in Upper Ringwood, New Jersey, due to industrial contamination.

Brown credits her success to a wide network of supporters.

“Big shout out to my EOF family, Dr. Danny Jean and the whole gang, my professors Chris Matthews and Mark Clatterbuck, and the whole Anthropology Department,” she says.

She also expresses deep gratitude to Chief Mann of the Turtle Clan and the Munsee Three Sisters Farm, her co-workers who kept her nourished during long study sessions, and her family and prayer communities.

“Khara is such an amazing person who has not only overcome so much to complete her college degree, but continues to see serving the greater good and, especially, underserved and marginalized communities as her purpose. Her impact as a student, archaeologist, educator and person will be profound,” Matthews says.

Words of Reflection

After graduation, Brown plans to move to Virginia for the summer and celebrate her 30th birthday – grateful for all she has overcome and excited for what lies ahead.

“Now that I’m at the finish line, I can sit back and say it was worth it. In some moments, it didn’t feel possible. But perseverance – that tenacity – is what keeps me going.”

The University will celebrate its graduates at Commencement exercises on Wednesday, May 7 and Thursday, May 8, 2025, at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Story by Marilyn Joyce Lehren, University Communications and Marketing

Ready to Start Your �鶹��ý�� Journey?

Prospective Students and Parents: Learn more about �鶹��ý�� admissions, our Anthropology major and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Journalists: Contact our Media Relations team to request assets or schedule an interview with a member of the Class of 2025.

Mark Clatterbuck Interviewed for Reveal/NPR on the Threat Posed by Christian Nationalism

morinm — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 14:25:44 +0000

On October 12, 2024, the PRX/Center for Investigative Reporting/NPR podcast Reveal released an episode titled “” featuring an interview with Mark Clatterbuck. The episode examines the effort of far-right conservatives in small-town America to turn the country into a Christian theocracy, including the enactment of dangerous anti-trans policies in public schools.

Listen to the episode .

2024 Native American and Indigenous Studies Field Summer School

miethk — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 20:14:09 +0000

�鶹��ý��’s Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) program will be running a community-engaged summer field school from May 14 to June 7, 2024. Students will learn from tribal leaders and �鶹��ý�� faculty about challenges facing NJ’s indigenous communities related to their recognition and survival.

The field school will include a blend of traditional classroom learning, fieldwork, hands-on learning, and working as part of a research team.

Specific activities include:

working with tribal members to create a digital document archive related to the Ringwood Superfund site located in the Ramapough Turtle Clan homeland
identifying and recording features of Native cultural heritage which may include a cemetery clean up as well as documentation of the Lenape ceremonial stone landscape
creating resources to support tribal language learning and revitalization
working at the tribally operated Munsee Three Sisters farm to support of Ramapough food sovereignty

The field school will meet Tuesday-Friday 4 days/week for 4 weeks 8:30am – 4:30pm. Students are expected to commit to the project full time. We will meet on the MSU campus as well as other locations including the Munsee Three Sisters Farm in Newton, NJ and the Ringwood Public Library. Transportation and meals will be provided when we visit off-campus sites. Students accepted to the field school will receive a stipend to offset personal expenses.

Please complete the following form to apply:

Application deadline: Friday, March 8, 2024, 5:00pm
Questions? Contact the programs directors at nais@montclair.edu

Download the 2024 NAIS Field Summer School Flyer

�鶹��ý�� NAIS Co-Director, Mark Clatterbuck, Weighs In On Permit Hurdles Faced by Native American Sanctuary

miethk — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:45:54 +0000

An organization with the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribe of NJ recently purchased 63-acres of land in Salem County, NJ, to establish the to serve as a cultural education center and ceremonial site for the Tribe. However, township officials have so far refused to issue the necessary permits to open the site to the public. Despite the fact that officials readily issued continuing use permits to various Christian groups who purchased the property in the past, officials are requiring Indigenous leaders to begin the whole zoning and permitting process from scratch, which will cost a great deal of time and money.

interviewed , Professor of Religion and co-director of Native American and Indigenous Studies, to delve into the controversy and offer insights into the challenges surrounding understanding and respecting Indigenous practices.

�鶹��ý��ion Interviews Founders of Native American and Indigenous Studies Club

miethk — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 21:18:05 +0000

In a the �鶹��ý��ion explores the dynamic journey of �鶹��ý��’s Native and Indigenous Studies Club, a student-led initiative born out of the newly introduced Native American and Indigenous Studies minor. Founded by senior anthropology major Farrah Fornarotto, the club champions Indigenous voices, delving into issues of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and legislative challenges while creating an inclusive space for all students to learn, engage, and amplify the vital narratives of Indigenous communities.

Students Plant Seeds to Revive a Native American Language

figuereoj1 — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 18:15:12 +0000

A month ago, with fields on the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm empty and snow-covered, a group of �鶹��ý�� students and their professors began the work of getting the farm ready for spring. Hand painting garden signs, they joined efforts to advance Indigenous food sovereignty, and – in writing on those signs “pehpeechkweekush” for “carrot” and other crops in the Munsee language – they were also planting seeds to help revive a Native American language.

“It’s definitely a great place to start, but hopefully it’s not where we stop,” says Farrah Fornarotto, a junior majoring in Anthropology, with minors in Archaeology and the new Native American and Indigenous Studies. “There’s a lot to tackle.”

The challenges date back decades. Munsee Three Sisters Farm provides traditional food for the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lunaape (Lenape) Nation, a tribe that can no longer safely farm its own land in Upper Ringwood, New Jersey. Environmental and health issues caused by industrial dumping have led to a generational decline in the Turtle Clan members’ ability to practice their culture, including the Munsee language, which is at risk of becoming as dormant as the winter fields.

An intensive, field-based partnership with the Turtle Clan Ramapough includes work at the Munsee Three Sisters Farm, where �鶹��ý�� students and professors are helping the tribe’s Indigenous food sovereignty and language revitalization efforts.

A key aspect of �鶹��ý��’s contributions are organizing the tribe’s records and documents related to the industrial dumping on ancestral land. Students are at work to help gather the scientific evidence documented at the Superfund site, the health impact and oral histories from eyewitnesses, and with University resources, creating a single, digitally accessible repository for future researchers and the tribal members who continue to fight for proper cleanup of the land.

More than 300 pages of newspaper articles detailing the dumping of toxic paint sludge from a Ford Motor Co. factory have been indexed by students. “My students are going through and creating a table of contents identifying the names [of key players], the toxic chemicals listed in reports, physical sites that are listed, agencies that are listed, and creating a searchable tool for that whole collection of news articles,” says Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion and co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program.

�鶹��ý�� students taking part in the class projects say they share a commitment for helping Indigenous communities. Jala Best, a senior Psychology major, says her drive comes from her experiences as an Afro-Indigenous woman.

“Oftentimes the issues of Native communities are ignored or Native people are spoken about in the past tense, like we are not still living, breathing, surviving and fighting for justice …. You can’t even conceptualize that there are atrocities happening today because you believe that it’s a thing of the past,” Best says.

Mark Clatterbuck, right, oversees the garden signage with students Camille Howard, Julia Rodano and Farrah Fornarotto. “It’s the small things that build up, and eventually over time, the Turtle Clan’s language will be more visible to them and also to the public,” Fornarotto says.

�鶹��ý�� has initiated a field-based partnership with Turtle Clan Chief Vincent Mann of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation. The University support includes students working directly with the tribe on food sovereignty, the language revitalization effort and ongoing environmental concerns as part of �鶹��ý��’s new minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies.

“The issues and the challenges of the Turtle Clan, they’re huge, they’re varied and there’s no shortage of them,” says Clatterbuck.

The program is closely tied to the University’s Land Acknowledgement Statement. Clatterbuck, along with History Professor Elspeth Martini and Anthropology Professor Chris Matthews consulted with New Jersey’s three state-recognized tribal nations – the Ramapough Lenape, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape and Powhatan Renape – in drafting the statement, and also considered how it could represent a commitment from �鶹��ý�� to working with and for their communities.

“It’s not just about making some sort of historical reference. It’s really about saying, ‘What is our responsibility to those communities?’” Clatterbuck says.

Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion and co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program, constructs signage as part of the field work helping promote the preservation of Native American land and culture.

The program is intentionally community-engaged, hands-on and focused on problem-solving, including finding creative ways to support community-driven language revitalization and environmental recovery. “The Ramapough understand that part of their healing and survival is really dependent on recovering key aspects of their cultural ways,” Clatterbuck says. “Language is on par with restoring foodways and their access to clean water, land and air.”

Munsee language expert, Nikole Pecore, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation in Wisconsin, has guided �鶹��ý�� students studying Linguistic Anthropology in building a digital repository of instructional materials that will be used to train new Munsee teachers and support community learners.

“We’re looking at language as a key to culture, to bringing back Munsee speaking cultures, as well as other Lenape languages belonging to original peoples in the state of New Jersey,” says Associate Anthropology Professor Maisa Taha.

Work on the farm also includes students preparing the fields and helping deliver the organic, healthy, medicinal healing crops to the community. “It’s doing the nitty-gritty work with local communities and following their lead,” Clatterbuck says.

Meryem Teke, a senior Religion major, paints a garden sign at the Munsee Three Sisters Farm. The work is among the creative ways �鶹��ý�� is supporting the Turtle Clan’s language revitalization and environmental recovery.

“It might be challenging to figure out how all of these different pieces fit together. But the fact of the matter is they are all intimately connected,” Taha says. “You can’t have language without culture. You can’t have culture without tribal sovereignty. You can’t have tribal sovereignty without environmental justice. What we’re bringing to our students and frankly, to ourselves as well, is this huge opportunity to work with our tribal partners in trying to understand those connections and come up with reasonable, impactful solutions that will serve them for years to come.”

Clatterbuck adds, “We’re all passionate about this on a personal level, and we see this as a matter of justice and addressing – you hear the buzzword ‘decolonization’ thrown around a lot – but as far as I’m concerned, this is what that work looks like. It’s messy, and it’s trial and error, and we’re figuring all this out as we go. But that is the work.”

Photo Gallery

�鶹��ý��’s new minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies is focusing on issues of indigenous sovereignty, cultural revitalization, environmental justice and language reclamation. Some of the field work is happening at the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm in Newtown, New Jersey.

�鶹��ý�� students have created signage for the Three Sisters Farm in the Munsee language. The illustrations will help tribal members as well as visitors to the farm visually connect the pictures and actual plants with the Munsee word. Efforts are also underway to create audio files so that learners can hear those words when accessed by QR codes added to the signs.

A rooster at Munsee Three Sisters Farm.

Story by Staff Writer Marilyn Joyce Lehren. Photos by John J. LaRosa.

You may also like:

Screening of Documentary “Meaning of the Seed”, a film about Native American justice and resilience in NJ, followed by discussion with filmmaker and tribal leaders

figuereoj1 — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 17:54:52 +0000

Screening of Documentary “Meaning of the Seed”, a film about Native American justice and resilience in NJ, followed by discussion with filmmaker and tribal leaders
When: Wednesday March 22 11:30-1:00
Where: University Hall 1040

Please join us! Documentary screening followed by panel discussion with filmmaker and tribal leaders!

Film Description: In September 2020 the documentary crew filmed a talking circle of Ramapough elders, relations, and partners at the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm. The resulting documentary- The Meaning of the Seed – is structured along the layers of the landscape, chronologically working up from the ground to the overstory. The first section, SOIL, describes the history of contamination in Ringwood and the contaminated ground that many Native Americans live on or near. SEED recounts the struggles of the Ramapough and their cultural connections to the land. GROWTH chronicles the Ramapough’s cultural restoration program and efforts to work towards food sovereignty through their recently inaugurated Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm in Newton, NJ. Finally, SUNLIGHT is a call to action, as the talking circle participants urge a younger generation to become involved with environmental justice movements.

The ancestral home of the Ramapough Lunaape (Lenape) Turtle Clan is Ringwood, New Jersey. The landscape includes former iron mines, Native American rock shelters, a forest in which people hunt and forage for food, a large drinking water reservoir, deep pockets of contaminated soil, streams that now flow with orange water, a stew of different chemical toxicants from the former Ford manufacturing plant, and the Ringwood Mines/Landfill Superfund Site. People live in the Superfund site, just upstream from the Wanaque Reservoir, which provides drinking water to millions of New Jersey residents.

Co-sponsored by:
• Departments of Anthropology, History, Linguistics, and Religion
• The Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education Project
• The University Senate Land Acknowledgment Committee

For further information please contact: Chris Matthews at matthewsc@montclair.edu

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day

morinm — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 16:05:06 +0000

�鶹��ý�� celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day on October 10 with a special on-campus event that not only highlighted thriving Indigenous cultures, but also showcased the institution’s commitment to creating hands-on learning opportunities that make a difference in the world.

�鶹��ý�� welcomed the Red Blanket Singers of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribe of New Jersey for a special performance as part of the early evening event, which also served as the formal unveiling of the University’s new Native American and Indigenous Studies minor and �鶹��ý��’s formal Land Acknowledgement.

Students from �鶹��ý��’s new course “Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies” read the Land Acknowledgement to begin the event, which also featured remarks from President Jonathan Koppell and recent alumna and Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape member Brianna Dagostino ’21.

Brianna Dagostino ’21 (Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape) offers reflections on the significance of Indigenous Peoples Day.

Department of Anthropology Chairperson and Native American and Indigenous Studies Co-Director Christopher Matthews welcomes the attendees.

Urie Ridgeway, emcee for the Red Blanket Singers.

�鶹��ý�� President Jonathan Koppell addresses the audience.

Members of the Red Blanket Singers participate in traditional tribal dances.

To see more photos, go to the . Photos by University Photographer Mike Peters.

�鶹��ý�� Local Highlights �鶹��ý��’s Indigenous Peoples Day Event

morinm — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 15:16:15 +0000

In an interview with professor Mark Clatterbuck, the �鶹��ý�� Local highlights the efforts of �鶹��ý�� to recognize and respect the Indigenous people through the Land Acknowledgement Agreement, the creation of the Native American and Indigenous Studies minor and current language revitalization projects. Read the story here

Community-Based Learning Makes an Impact

morinm — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 18:45:33 +0000

, an associate professor in the , had his syllabus for his “Indigenous Voices Today” (/) course ready for the Spring 2022 semester, complete with readings, lectures and assignments. However, one week before the start of the semester, Clatterbuck joined other �鶹��ý�� faculty on a tour led by Chief Vincent Mann through the Ramapough Turtle Clan community in Upper Ringwood, NJ, and saw, firsthand, the devastating environmental impacts that the Tribe has endured for decades.

On the first day of class, Clatterbuck shared his experiences with the students and proposed scrapping the syllabus, taking a risk and partnering with the Turtle Clan in their fight for justice.

“The title of our course was ‘Indigenous Voices Today,’”said Clatterbuck. “Why study Native communities in Arizona, South Dakota, or California when we could work alongside a Native community right here in New Jersey?”

With the students up for the challenge, Clatterbuck and his students began planning the next sixteen weeks of their course which turned into a justice-oriented, community-based learning experience.

Warning Signs at the Ringwood Superfund Site, Home of the Turtle Clan Ramapough

History of Environmental Injustice

The Turtle Clan’s core community of the Ramapough Lenape Nation has lived in Ringwood, NJ, and the mountains of Passaic and Sussex Counties in New Jersey, and Warwick and surrounding areas in New York for centuries. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the Ford Motor company purchased the land that the Tribe called home, and used the local Ringwood Mines as a disposal for paint sludge and other toxic waste materials. The resulting contaminants lead to the entire community being named a Superfund Site.

To this day, the Tribe continues to fight for proper cleanup of the toxic site which has put the community’s land, water, air and public health at risk for decades.

“This is a classic case of environmental racism, unfolding just 20 miles from campus. It’s also a reminder that the genocidal & land-grabbing legacy of US settler colonialism toward Indigenous people is not a relic of the past. It continues today,” says Clatterbuck.

Work Begins

Through conversations with Turtle Clan Chief Vincent Mann, Clatterbuck’s students organized into two teams, both with goals and objectives aimed in direct response to the Superfund Site.

A student Clinic Team was developed to explore the steps the Tribe could take to form an Indigenous Wellness Clinic to address the serious health concerns of the community while also promoting Munsee (a subtribe of the Lenape) traditional knowledge, culture, language, and spirituality.

After hearing that Chief Mann was interested in language recovery for the Ramapough, Anna Stalenyj, a Family Science & Human Development major, set a goal to create a language revitalization binder for Chief Mann. Through online research, attendance at campus language revitalization workshops and coordination of a virtual class workshop with an Apsáalooke language expert with rich experiences of work among the Crow Tribe in Montana, Stalenyj was able to provide Mann with a wide range of resources to continue the work of restoring the Turtle Clan’s language, culture and customs.

The other half of Clatterbuck’s students formed the Archive Team, dedicated to laying the groundwork for a digital archive of materials to aid the Tribe in their ongoing legal battle against both Ford and the federal government for a livable future. One of the prime issues the Ramapough were having with their progress in their legal battle was organizing their files and accounting for all relevant documents.

“My role in the archive team was to create what essentially became an annotated bibliography for a series of documents the tribe was having difficulty organizing,” said Amanda Quintana, an English major and Religion minor. “Our group went through the “motherload”, a large compilation of documents, and added information that allowed for easy navigation as well as a brief understanding of the contents in each file.”

Students sort through and scan Tribe documents to create a digital archive.

Stepping out of the model of the traditional classroom experience, like Clatterbuck’s students have, puts the student in the driver’s seat as co-creators, working together to solve real-world challenges. Through field trips, volunteering with the Ramapough community, meeting with tribal leaders, and holding zoom sessions with experts in Native cultural ways, the students were able to see and experience the actual stakes at play for the Turtle Clan Community.

“One thing I discovered about myself during this experience and semester was my love for this unconventional method of learning,” says Stalenyj. “I believe that education is important, but being able to get an education by assisting those in need and actively working to address current injustices is far more important.”

In a class with students hailing from different academic majors, a break from the traditional classroom experience allowed students to find a project within their assigned teams that they could relate to their own educational experience while still contributing to the larger team goals.

Yazemin Yilmaz, a Film and Television major, captured the course experience in . Through videos and photos from course field trips and on-camera interviews, the students discuss the course projects they worked on and the experiences of the hands-on learning approach.

“No matter the movement, whether or not you are affected by the injustices, more voices travel further than few,” said Yilmaz. “The underlying goal [of the documentary] is ensuring that this class, or similar ones, continue to exist. We need as many hands to support our Native community.”

Quintana highlights the conversations with Chief Mann, as the most impactful parts of the course, noting that the passion and frustration behind his words was especially moving.

“It is difficult to become completely invested in an issue when it is limited to an academic setting, however, by learning about Indigenous experiences directly from tribe members and taking part in their tribe’s activities, our class was able to strongly connect to the importance of their problems,” says Quintana. “Interacting directly with the Clan and learning about their experiences allowed us to develop a strong “why” when it comes to creating real change.“

The impact of the course is tangible as Clatterbuck notes that several students have kept in touch to see how they can remain involved in the projects with the Turtle Clan, even though classes ended in early May.

Looking to the Future

As a scholar of religion, Clatterbuck says his goal is always to help students understand the deadly serious consequences of how unexplored assumptions and core beliefs profoundly shape decisions and behaviors, both individually and collectively.

“I personally believe that community-engaged, justice-oriented, problem-based classes like ‘Indigenous Voices Today’ might be the best response we have to the perennial question: why study the Humanities? At their core, the Humanities challenge us to ask hard questions about the kind of society we’re creating together, and what concrete steps we can take to shape a more just and compassionate world.”

Clatterbuck intends to continue the project with future students in this course and says the work is really just beginning. One of the projects the class completed in the spring was acquiring a large, multi-purpose, military field tent for the Turtle Clan, which was donated and installed at the Tribe’s Munsee Three Sisters Organic Farm in Newton, NJ.

“We want this tent to serve as a community-based learning space for MSU classes to volunteer at the farm, build relationships with the Ramapough, and learn about organic farming, food justice, contemporary Native lifeways, and Indigenous sovereignty.”

�鶹��ý��’s newly established Native American & Indigenous Studies Minor is already exploring possibilities to make use of the outdoor space. This Fall, Clatterbuck’s students in “Native American Religions” () will visit the farm to discuss the role of traditional medicinals in Ramapough spirituality and learn from tribal elders about the sacredness of the natural.