Biden set to apologize to Native Americans for boarding schools, becoming first president to do so [Video]

President Biden plans to formally apologize Friday for the U.S. government’s role in running hundreds of Indian boarding schools for a 150-year period that stripped Native American children of their language and culture in a systematic effort to force them to assimilate into White society, according to administration officials.

These remarks would be the first time a U.S. president has apologized for the atrocities suffered by tens of thousands of Native children who were forced to attend boarding schools over several generations. From 1819 to 1969, the U.S. government managed or paid churches and religious groups to run more than 400 federal Indian boarding schools across 37 states.

“It’s extraordinary that President Biden is doing this,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the country’s first Native American Cabinet secretary, in an interview with The Washington Post. “It will mean the world to so many people across Indian Country.”

Biden is set …