Indigenous people rejoice after city of Berkeley votes to return sacred Native land to Ohlone | KLRT [Video]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Ohlone people and others rejoiced Wednesday over the return of sacred Native land dating back thousands of years, saying the move rights a historic wrong and restores the people who were first on land now called Berkeley, California, to their rightful place in history.

The 2.2-acre (0.89-hectare) parking lot is the only undeveloped portion of the shellmound in West Berkeley, where ancestors of today’s Ohlone people established the first human settlement on the shores of the San Francisco Bay 5,700 years ago.

Berkeley’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an ordinance giving the title of the land to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a San Francisco Bay Area collective led by women that works to return land to Indigenous people. The collective raised most of the money needed to reach the agreement with developers who own the land.

“We want to be a place for …