A Healing Journey

It’s been far from a lonely fight — she’s had many allies over the past 20 years — but Rebecca Genia deserves to be the face of a hard-won victory this month with the preservation of Sugar Loaf, a parcel on the sacred crest of a hill in Shinnecock Hills that is a traditional burial site for the Native American tribe that gave the region its name.

It’s difficult to overstate Ms. Genia’s steadfast commitment to justice and her bottomless well of patience. For years, it seemed, hers was a voice crying in the wilderness. Who could have expected otherwise? Who truly believed it would be possible to return some of the most valuable land on the planet to the Shinnecock Nation, just because its members treasured that soil — the resting place of ancestors — for reasons far beyond its market appraisals ?

Ms. Genia did. Her cause was just, her anger justified. Her fight was righteous. Like all great leaders, she refused to accept that it was unrealistic to expect victory. She would settle for nothing less.

What happened last week might, at first glance, appear to be a small victory: a 4.5-acre parcel, with a 7,000-square-foot house on it, purchased for $5.6 million, a partnership between the tribe, Peconic Land Trust and the town’s Community Preservation Fund, with rock legend Roger Waters, a Bridgehampton resident, pitching in a crucial $300,000 to sweeten the deal. It will eventually go back to the Shinnecock Nation; the house will be torn down, removing a blemish on what had been a pristine burial site cherished by the tribe.

But it’s enormous. It was unthinkable just a few short years ago, unfathomable before then. Acquiring even a single parcel in this manner is an incredible success story; its location, at nearly the epicenter of hallowed ground, makes it a symbolic triumph. And the mechanism is now in place to repeat the success story again and again in Shinnecock Hills, returning more and more sacred land to its original inhabitants.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Shane Weeks, a younger generation of Shinnecock but Ms. Genia’s co-chair on the Graves Protection Warrior Society, who picked up the cause and fought alongside her. He added, “I think it honors our past ancestors as well as those future generations that will come after us.”

The land will once again be restored to its natural beauty, one parcel at a time, and will again play host to the nation’s rituals and celebrations. Remains of tribe members held in places they don’t belong — including museum storerooms — may one day be repatriated and buried where they belong, among the bones of generations of their ancestors.

The town’s role in bringing about this happy resolution doesn’t undo years of mistreatment, but as Supervisor Jay Schneiderman put it, “It doesn’t undo the hurt, but it does help cleanse the wound.” As Shinnecock Nation member Jennifer Cuffee-Wilson put it, “It’s the start of a healing.”

It’s the beginning of a healing journey, for the tribe and its neighbors to take together. It will take time to achieve big successes — but that shouldn’t be discouraging. As Rebecca Genia and her resolute demand for reparation remind us, patience will be rewarded if your cause is just.