Inspired by the story of residential school survivor Phyllis Jack Webstad, people across Canada have commemorated September 30 as Orange Shirt Day for nearly a decade.
As a young girl, Phyllis was given a new orange shirt by her grandmother before being taken to a B.C. residential school. The shirt was confiscated and destroyed by her teacher on the first day of class. The destruction of Phyllis’s shirt has come to symbolize the colonial goal of residential schools to assimilate Indigenous peoples.
