John Thomas has had a fascinating life journey from the Native American child who attended a Lutheran boarding school in Oklahoma to the Elder of a 21st century Delaware Tribe looking for ways to connect with their ancestral Lenape homeland.
Along the way he did military service during the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, was active in the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the late 60s and early 70s, participated in the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, was present at Wounded Knee in 1973, represented the International Treaty Organization in Palestine in 1979 and the same year was in Iran during the Iranian Revolution and found himself carrying letters from the U.S. hostages home and back as a key player in the Iran Hostage Letter Exchange.
Today John divides his time between home and family in Oklahoma and projects to build bridges between Lenape everywhere and their ancestral homeland in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Welcome Home Project with Ursinus College and the Perkiomen Valley School District has produced an annual Lenape Symposium and a residency at the college for John, a home for John's personal archive at the college, and the development of a native plants arboretum at the Perkiomen Valley Middle School. Burial grounds have been established for the reinterment of the remains of ancestors recovered from museum collections, and the search continues for land and buildings that members of the federally recognized Lenape nations in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario can use to experience, reestablish connections, and be present in Lenapehoking, the land of their ancestors.