Backed by a drumbeat and vocals, 150 people strode down two lanes of traffic on Point Brown Avenue in Ocean Shores, bright spring sunshine striking the painted red handprints covering their mouths and faces. They carried signs reading “No more missing Natives,” “Children are sacred,” “We will be heard, not silence,” and “You are strong enough.”

Ocean Shores closed its main drag at noon Tuesday to let the large group — students, staff and other supporters of Native education programs at schools in Grays Harbor and beyond — safely walk to the city’s convention center.

“Closing down the whole boulevard felt like something out of the movies,” said Chelsea Capoeman, an enrolled Quinault Indian Nation citizen and coordinator of the North Beach School District’s Indian Education Program. “We had that highway to heaven all for ourselves. I think the kids really enjoyed the sun beating down — it was like the creator opened up the clouds just for us.”

“It felt very powerful,” said Aunnie Markishtum, a sixth-grader at Pacific Beach Elementary who walked near the front of the march.

The display followed a recent day of awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, or MMIP, which is nationally recognized as May 5.

The red handprints, which covered participants’ mouths, are a sign of solidarity for MMIP, and have become the “center of the symbolism representing how Native Americans perceive the connection between physical and spiritual world” and symbolize the silencing of past atrocities against native people, Capoeman said.

Violence against Native Americans and Alaska Natives, specifically women, far exceeds the national average. According to the National Crime Information Center, there were nearly 5,500 missing Indigenous women across the country as of 2022, though those statistics are commonly underreported.

Washington state has the second-highest rate of those cases in the nation.

The movement to address the disproportionate effects of violence on tribal communities has gained momentum in recent years, coinciding with an increase in awareness events each May and discussion over cold cases nationwide.

On Tuesday, North Beach’s first annual MMIP event — themed kwɪʔc̓əppɑk kəx̣ in the Quinault language, or “You are strong enough” — featured the walk, a traditional meal and songs and dances.

But Capoeman also wanted to shed light on MMIP stories closer to home, so she dug into records and conducted interviews to show how violence against indigenous people has directly affected her own family.

“It’s just awful what happened to them, but if we don’t talk about it then we can’t protect our people from these things happening repeatedly,” she said. “We owe it to ourselves to tell these stories”

After the group finished its walk down Point Brown, they gathered at the Ocean Shores Convention Center, where Capoeman highlighted stories of seven Quinault people who were killed, disappeared or faced violence — several of whom were in her own family.

Capoeman talked about her grandmother, Carmen Lorraine Kelly, who was murdered in 1980 by an abusive partner on the Quinault Indian Reservation at age 28. In an interview, an older family member told Capoeman about the pattern of domestic violence that Kelly faced.

According to Capoeman, her grandmother’s family attempted to testify about the abuse to a court in Tacoma during the murder trial but were barred from the courtroom.

“Carmen left behind loved children,” she said. “She passed way too young — she was only 28 years old and had her entire life before her.”

Kelly was not the first in Capoeman’s lineage whose life was cut short by violence. Her grandfather, Delmer Leroy Colegrove, was killed by a Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s officer at Point Grenville on the Quinault reservation in 1944 at age 31.

One of 12 siblings, Colegrove was born on the Hoopa Valley Reservation in Northern California and later became a horse wrangler, moved to Taholah and had six children of his own.

Capoeman said many historical records of the incidents were either not kept or misrepresented.

“These things are hard for elders to talk about, they’re hard for our families, they lock that away in their heart because it’s traumatic,” she said. “We owe it to ourselves to dive into these and tell these stories.”

For Capoeman, the effect of violence stretches not only to her family’s history, but also to its youngest generation. Her daughter, 19-year-old Violette Capoeman, told her story in a video recording on Tuesday of being stalked by a non-Native man, over the course of several years.

“It just seemed like every corner, anywhere that I went, he was there,” Violette said. “Even now, I could be anywhere in the world and I just feel like he could be there.”

According to Violette, police downplayed the threat when the incidents were reported. Then, the family’s first attempt at a legal protection order was denied in state court and was only fulfilled after a subsequent filing in county court.

But the problem worsened in December 2023, Chelsea Capoeman said, when the perpetrator returned and attempted to stab her daughter. Capoeman said the man has not been arrested and is subject to a federal warrant.

Violette called for increased training for police and the courts to “emphasize sensitivity to these victims’ circumstances.”

“These court systems and police departments need to ensure that these court cases are being respected with their full faith and credit,” she said.

According to federal statistics, nearly half of American Indian or Alaska Native women will experience stalking in their lifetimes — in most cases, by a non-Native perpetrator.

Unlike those in Capoeman’s family history, other stories have received broader media coverage or are ongoing investigations. Capoeman recalled the death of Jimmy Smith-Kramer, a 20-year-old Quinault father who in 2017 was run over and killed by the driver of a pickup truck during his birthday celebration. Many tribal members felt the crime was racially motivated, but it was not prosecuted as a hate crime.

Capoeman also pointed to the story of Elsie Eldora Luscier and Carlotta Maria Sanchez, a pair of middle-school aged girls whose case is getting a second look more than 40 years after they went missing one day on the Quinault reservation. The girls were presumed runaways, and no official search began until two weeks later.

Earlier this year, new information prompted investigators with the FBI to search for more information about their disappearance.

North Beach’s first MMIP drew attention to stories of Quinault people, it also drew tribal educators and students from outside the area.

In addition to attendees from Native Education Programs in Aberdeen and Hoquiam, groups from school districts in Bellevue and Seattle made the trip to the coast Tuesday.

“I felt very honored that the Quinault tribe was welcoming us onto their lands, and to be able to share in the joint goal of bringing awareness,” said Lauren Nabahe, who manages several native education programs in King County and traveled to Ocean Shores with a handful of students.

“It felt pretty powerful to share in that space with other native people from other native tribes,” said Nabahe, who is Paiute-Shoshone, Navajo and Mono.

Capoeman invited Nabahe’s group to North Beach after getting to know her on an education coalition through the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, a nonprofit focused on providing cultural services for native communities.

Nabahe said she hopes the event will grow next year to include more people and programs. She and her students participated in a traditional Quinault “friendship dance” and provided a song of their own sung for women warriors.

Capoeman took over in October as coordinator North Beach’s Title IV Indian Education Program, which, under federal law, provides a supplemental cultural curriculum for Native students.

178 students enrolled in North Beach’s three schools are American Indian, Canada Native or Alaska Native — about one-quarter of the student population.

On April 29 the district officially recognized May 5 as MMIP Day.

In an email, North Beach Superintendent Jim Shank called the event “an excellent opportunity to teach our children and then unite around the need for action and justice. Chelsea Capoeman did an outstanding job organizing and bringing this exceptional event to our school district.”

“I liked being at the event with my Native brothers and sisters,” said Tein Tu-Liak Meas, a sixth grader at Pacific Beach Elementary. “My favorite part of the event was the stories because it took true bravery to speak their truth.”

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.

Clayton Franke / The Daily World Chelsea Capoeman, center, with hat, walks down Point Brown Avenue in Ocean Shores as part of an event to raise awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People on May 7. Capoeman, Native Education Coordinator with the North Beach School District, coordinated with native educators at other school districts to host the event, which also featured a meal, personal stories and song and dance.

Clayton Franke / The Daily World About 150 people, from Native students and educators to supporters, gathered in Ocean Shores May 7 to walk down Point Brown Avenue in honor of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Day, which occurred May 5.

Clayton Franke / The Daily World Drummers lead a song inside the Ocean Shores Convention Center May 7 as part of an event recognizing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Day, which occurred May 5.