User:PaigeTurner5C/sandbox

As the lead organizer for the group Indian People Organizing for Change (IPOC), Gould has worked for over two decades to preserve and protect Ohlone Shellmounds, the ancient burial sites of her ancestors. She is a cofounder of IPOC, which sponsored the Shellmound Peace Walk 2005–2009 and currently works to protect the West Berkeley Shellmound. She has also led the campaign to collect a Shuumi Land Tax in order to return land to Indigenous people through the Sogorea Te Land Trust.

Gould is currently focused on the West Berkeley Shellmound, at the site of the earliest known habitation in the Bay Area. Carbon dating puts the earliest additions to the shellmound at about 3,700 B.C.E, with continuous additions from a village at the site until 800 C.E. At that point, the village relocated nearby, but the mound maintained ongoing ceremonial purposes, including as a burial site. While the portions of the mound that were aboveground, reportedly 300 feet long and thirty feet high, were removed by white inhabitants between the years of 1853 and 1910 and used to build roads and for other commercial purposes, the subterranean portions of the mound remain. They are currently covered by a parking lot. A developer with plans to build high density housing on that spot has been stopped by the City of Berkeley, motivated by Gould's activism. In 2000 the Berkeley City Council named the spot an historic landmark, and in September, 2020, the National Trust for Historic Preservation declared the site as one of the 11 “most endangered historic places” in the United States. Although the developer tried to get a streamlined approval process which would not have included as much public comment, the City did not pass that request and a judge further backed the City in a subsequent lawsuit. Gould and the IPOC have continued to advocate throughout for the preservation of the remaining portions of their sacred site.

In April 2011, Gould, Johnella LaRose, Wounded Knee De Ocampo, and other held a sit-in at Sogorea Te, a sacred site in the current city of Vallejo, CA, that lasted 109 days. The occupation led to a cultural easement between the City of Vallejo, the Greater Vallejo Recreation District, and two federally recognized tribes.

''Gould is currently focused on the West Berkeley Shellmound, at the site of the earliest known habitation in the Bay Area. Carbon dating puts the earliest additions to the shellmound at about 3,700 B.C.E, with continuous additions from a village at the site until 800 C.E. At that point, the village relocated nearby, but the mound maintained ongoing ceremonial purposes, including as a burial site. While the portions of the mound that were aboveground, reportedly 300 feet long and thirty feet high, were removed by white inhabitants between the years of 1853 and 1910 and used to build roads and for other commercial purposes, the subterranean portions of the mound remain. They are currently covered by a parking lot. A developer with plans to build high density housing on that spot has been stopped by the City of Berkeley, motivated by Gould's activism. In 2000 (?) the Berkeley City Council named the spot an historic landmark, and in September, 2020, the National Trust  for Historic Preservation declared the site as one of the 11 “most endangered historic places” in the United States. Although the developer tried to get a streamlined approval process which would not have included as much public comment, the City did not pass that request and a judge further backed the City in a subsequent lawsuit. Gould and the IPOC have continued to advocate throughout for the preservation of the remaining portions of their sacred site.''

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