Bellingham Summit Draws Hundreds

Standing-room-only crowds and overflow parking filled the PeaceHealth St. Luke’s Community Health Education Center on Thursday. Attendees packed the facility for the annual Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Summit, prompting hosts to discuss securing a larger venue for next year’s event.

The gathering began with Lummi musician Antone George performing “Song of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.” From 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., speakers, panelists, storytellers, and musicians took the stage to honor missing loved ones and raise awareness about the crisis.

National data presented at the summit indicated that homicide is the sixth-leading cause of death for Indigenous women and girls. For Indigenous men, it is the third-leading cause of death. A federal study reported that Native American women are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than the national average. More than four in five Native women will experience some form of violence in their lives.

Kenna Miller, a member of the Intertribal Youth Council, spoke about the generational trauma affecting her community. “We’re not crazy. We’re not violent,” Miller said. “We just want to let other people know what our cause is and what our community is going through and how it impacts us on a daily basis. We’re afraid to go on buses, we’re afraid to be in big communities, we’re afraid that we might be raped, taken or murdered, and that’s the truth.”

Ron Noland Jr. shared the story of his mother, Besalynn James, a Lummi tribal member who went missing on Jan. 20, 2025. James, who would have recently turned 64, was reported missing to the Lummi Nation Police department four days later. She is one of about 124 missing Indigenous people in Washington. Noland stated that his mother’s boyfriend reported she left at 1 a.m. after an argument and never returned.

Deborah Parker, the Tulalip Tribes vice chair, recounted how she discovered Native women were excluded from the Violence Against Women Act in 2012. She stood with senators Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, and Amy Klobuchar in Washington, D.C., to share her story. The bill passed with protections for Native women just hours before her return flight. Parker noted that the first Native American woman elected governor of New Mexico, Deb Haaland, represents a shift in leadership.

The Washington Attorney General’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force released a 2026 Interim Report. It states the task force received 19 alerts for missing persons from January to April of this year. Two of those individuals have not yet been found. The report notes that alert numbers increase each year as more law enforcement agencies adopt the system. In 2023, the state established the first Cold Case Unit dedicated to missing and murdered Indigenous women and people, along with two tribal liaison positions at the Washington State Patrol. Irene Moses, whose mother Iva Darlene Smith went missing in 2009, said, “Our loved ones are more than statistics. They are mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties and grandmothers. They deserve to be remembered, honored and loved.”