Radical Resistance Tour

The Radical Resistance Tour is an autonomous project by a group of media makers and organizers. We're touring the United States and interviewing activists, people participating in direct actions, and people working to create a dual power model. We want to show people who aren't on the ground how people are being directly affected by decisions being made by corporations and governments that put profits over people and the environment. We want to inspire more people to fight back by featuring people who are already fighting back, and hopefully gain some shared wisdom by listening to how others are resisting. All videos were shot on an iPhone 4S and an iPod Touch. Contact: radicalresistancetour[at]gmail[dot]com Many thanks to the people who supported our project: Alexis Goldstein Diana Paez Jason Shelton Ann Russell Robert Gannaway

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Whitekkklay, Nebraska

Two hundred feet from the border of the Pine Ridge reservation lies the unincorporated town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, technically on Lakota treaty land. With a population of just twelve people, Whiteclay is tiny by any standards. Yet, its four bars manage to make four million dollars a year, primarily from residents of the neighboring Pine Ridge Reservation, where alcohol is strictly prohibited. The Oglala Sioux Tribe Criminal Offenses Code makes it a crime to manufacture, transport, sell, or possess alcohol anywhere within the borders of the reservation, where public or private intoxication is also penalized.

Pine Ridge has been a dry reservation for generations. When the 70,000 square miles became a reservation in 1881, it also was named Prisoner of War Camp #334. The government agent responsible for it had cautioned of "introduction of intoxicating liquor from the whiskey ranches established just over the Nebraska line." In a feeble preventative attempt, the U.S. government inserted a 50-mile buffer zone between Pine Ridge and the Nebraska border, with the supposed intent to “prevent renegade whites from selling guns, knives and alcohol to Indians living on the reservation.” In 1904, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt canceled the buffer zone (and gave the demarcated land to the state of Nebraska) and alcohol dealers moved in several months later.

In Sheridan County, where Whiteclay is, the arrest rate per 1,000 people is the highest of all of Nebraska. 60% of those arrests were of Native people, whom U.S. authorities have been accustomed to arresting as they see fit for ages. On the Pine Ridge reservation, home to 40,000 people, the Tribal Police made 20,000 alcohol-related arrests in 2011. Needless to say, that same alcohol comes almost exclusively from Whiteclay.

Whiteclay’s multi-million dollar alcohol industry doesn’t seem to be going anywhere despite years of dissent from Pine Ridge. So Lakota activists and community members, with the newest generation of the American Indian Movement (AIM), decided it was time to step things up by taking physical measures to try to put an end to what they aptly call “liquid genocide.” Since June 1999, the annual March for Justice takes place commemorating the lives of two Lakota people, Wally Black Elk and Ron Hard Heart. They were found brutally murdered in a roadside ditch, just barely outside of Whiteclay, several feet within Pine Ridge boundaries. With more under-investigated and unsolved murders and people dying of exposure, Lakota activists have organized actions against Whiteclay several times a year, with the intent to disrupt its alcohol sales, thereby preventing alcohol-related deaths, assaults, and accidents on the reservation.

When we visited Pine Ridge last summer, it was a couple of months after the March for Justice, in time for their first annual Women’s Day of Peace. Coordinated by Lakota women who especially feel the impact of Whiteclay’s alcohol distribution with sexual assault rates on the reservation twice the national average, the event was planned around a direct action to close off access to the town and halt its operation. What would be different about that day’s organized resistance was the participation of explicitly non-Native allies in the blockade; 4 out of the 5 blockaders were white. In other words, a non-Native group of people would be arrested in order to catch the attention of the mainstream media—an institution which has been ignoring Native issues forever.

Over the few days before the Women’s Day of Peace, action participants began showing up to Kiza Park, in Pine Ridge, where we would all be camping throughout the weekend leading up to the action. Folks came from groups such as (un)Occupy Albuquerque (including Amalia from Episode 5, who told us about the action,) Nebraskans for Peace, Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Occupy Lincoln, and a sizeable contingent from Deep Green Resistance (DGR) – Great Plains. Numerous trainings were held at the action camp over the weekend on the topics of direct action, legal, media, and white privilege. Between trainings, there was plenty happening at the park, from puppet-making for the march into Whiteclay, to food preparation and conversations by the campfire.

The day before the action, a high-ranking member of the Lakota Tribal Police came to meet with action organizers, and confirmed Tribal Police cooperation at the event, and asserted their desire to protect Lakota community members from Nebraska police. One of the Lakota event organizers who also happened to be married to the Tribal Police officer, chuckled that she often reminds her husband, “You’re a Lakota before you’re a pig!”

At around noon on August 26, 2012, nearly 100 people marched from Billy Mills Hall in Pine Ridge, up State Highway 407 for 2.5 miles, across the Nebraska State border to Whiteclay. More than half of the marchers were Lakota protesters, who held signs that read:

“We are all going to die. Until then we will fight til our dying breath!”

“Alcohol is war on our people. Stop Now!”

“The more you drink, the richer they get”

“A sober Indian is a dangerous Indian”

The main road of Whiteclay was packed with protesters and supporters. People in the road formed a circle and Lakota women took turns going to the center to share stories with the crowd about how they’ve been affected by alcohol. Soon, the blockade was underway, as 5 DGR members used lockboxes to form a human chain across the road in the middle of the town. No vehicles could enter or exit Whiteclay. A standoff was in effect between protesters and Nebraska State troopers that ended up lasting roughly 6 hours. The Elk Nation Singers, comprised of Lakota warriors, gathered around a drum and offered honor, prayer, and war songs throughout the day.  

By 4 p.m., all four bars had been shut down. An elder Lakota woman who appeared to be intoxicated outside one of the bars was arrested and being taken into custody by a Sheridan County Sheriff officer when she was promptly and successfully de-arrested by family members who were nearby. A little while later, a 14-year-old Lakota protester was arrested after County sheriff officers claimed he had a knife. Attempts were made to de-arrest him while young Lakota warriors blocked the police car he was in, and the officers frantically pepper sprayed bystanders, including a 10-year-old. On any other day in Whiteclay, such laws are not typically enforced, but the custom of arresting Lakota people and no white people is.

Between that time and 6 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office gave the 5 blockaders a couple of warnings, a dispersal order, and then declared them under arrest. At 6:30, the County Sheriff had a horse trailer brought in as the only viable option to transport the blockaders who were still locked together. We later learned that the police and firefighters were still unable to figure out how to unlock them once they arrived at the County jail. The blockaders eventually agreed to unlock themselves and were released at around 10 p.m. without bail. The bars remained closed for the rest of the day, and as a result of the Whiteclay road blockade, the Lakota people helped curb alcohol-related crime and abuse that day.

Since the successes of the Women’s Day of Peace events and other similar initiatives to disrupt Whiteclay alcohol distribution, Lakota activists have set up a checkpoint on the Whiteclay–Pine Ridge border, called Zero Tolerance Camp. The Tribal Ordinance prohibiting alcohol on the reservation was proving to be insufficient, so the camp was created to enforce it. Amidst increasing public outrage, beer manufacturer High Plains Budweiser stopped deliveries to Whiteclay, forcing buyers to travel 20 miles away for Budweiser.

*BREAKING UPDATE*

On August 13, 2013, the Oglala Sioux Tribe held a vote to decide whether or not to legalize alcohol on the reservation. Legalizing it would prevent revenue from going to Nebraska, and bring it into the reservation to be fund education, detoxification, and treatment centers. Once tribal liquor stores and bars open, the four bars in Whiteclay would go out of business.

According to a Tribal spokesperson, the vote was 1,645 for and 1,494 against. 438 of those votes were challenged and re-evaluated. After alleged reports of protesters threatening to disrupt proceedings, ballot counting was moved to another location.

On August 15, with a revised count of 1,843 to 1,678, there were still not enough votes against legalization. The ban was overturned, legalizing alcohol. Pine Ridge was the last dry reservation in South Dakota.

The next Women’s Day of Action is coming up very soon, and supporters are invited to participate in the events. In addition to the March for Justice each June, there continue to be coordinated events and actions every few months in Whiteclay and in Pine Ridge; the fight against alcoholism hasn’t ended.

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Pine Ridge Faces of Resistance

Olowan Martinez is a mother and land defender. She is the child of AIM activists and works with Owe Aku Bring Back the Way and founded Zero Tolerance Camp at the border of Pine Ridge and Whiteclay, Nebraska, where she leads resistance against alcoholism and the alcohol industry. [Photo 1]

Vic Camp is a resident of the Pine Ridge Reservation and works with Owe Aku Bring Back the Way. He is the child of AIM activists and hosts a weekly show on KILI 90.1FM, a Lakota radio station, where he talks about colonization and Native issues. [Photo 2]

Sacheen Pointe traveled to Pine Ridge from the Ahousaht First Nation, in so-called British Columbia. Alcohol also destroys lives where she lives with her children, so she came to support fellow Native women facing similar issues. [Photo 3]

Debra White Plume is a grandmother and founder of Owe Aku Bring Back the Way. She is currently leading resistance against the Keystone XL Pipeline. Debra is a resident of the Pine Ridge Reservation, where she has been organizing to protect the land for a very long time. [Photo 4]

T.R. McKenzie is an activist who was a Deep Green Resistance blockader when we met him in Pine Ridge, but he now works with Deep Roots, a collective in its early stages that organizes actions focused on people of color.  [Photo 5]

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Pine Ridge, South Dakota

In the belief systems of more than sixty indigenous nations, the Black Hills are considered the center of the world. So it was painful to see the area plagued by tourists for Mount Rushmore - the faces of four white men carved into spiritually sacred land. According to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the Oglala Lakota Nation has territorial claims to the Black Hills, but the land was stolen from them several years later in pursuit of gold—which the Supreme Court conceded in 1980, ruling that the land was seized illegally. Rather than return the Black Hills as requested, the U.S. government sought to compensate the Lakota people with money; the Lakota rejected the offer and the government and private landowners continue to hold on to the land.

In 1973, roughly 200 American Indian Movement (AIM) activists and Lakota community members occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days, in an ongoing standoff and shootout against U.S. Marshals and the FBI which became known as the Wounded Knee Incident. The reasons for the occupation were to protest against a corrupt tribal government and to call attention to the U.S. government’s record of breaking treaties with tribes. Two protesters were killed by gunfire: a Cherokee man was shot in the head as he slept next to his pregnant wife, and a Lakota person was shot by a government sniper. Over the course of the shootout, two FBI agents were also shot: one died shortly thereafter, and the other was paralyzed from the waist down, later dying from complications. The deaths eventually led to both sides agreeing to a ceasefire several days later. The activists began leaving overnight, and the government regained control of the town. One AIM activist, Leonard Peltier, is still in prison from the incident.

The Lakota have been fighting for their land and way of life for centuries. Beyond having an extensive history of being brutally colonized, they have watched the U.S. government continually launch legislative attempts to erase their culture since the creation of the U.S. government. The Code of Indian Offenses of 1883 outlawed all indigenous customs. The Dawes Act of 1887 was adopted to break up tribes and force people to live on individually allotted parcels of land rather than as a community, so that ultimately, white men ended up owning the remaining land. From 1879 until the 1970s, more than 100,000 Native children were forced to attend government boarding schools. Interfering families risked imprisonment, and children were forcibly removed or kidnapped from their homes and taken to the schools. At the schools, generations of children were abused, dehumanized, and stripped of their culture and identities, in order for the U.S. government to “civilize” them.  

Today, the Pine Ridge Reservation, home of the Oglala Lakota Nation and nearly 45,000 people, is considered the most impoverished place in the U.S. Often compared to a third–world country, the reservation experiences 80% unemployment, high mortality rates, depression, alcoholism, and a teenage suicide rate four times the national average. Although the U.S. government’s American Indian Termination Policy ended in the 1960s, it unofficially remains alive and well today in Pine Ridge and in its neighboring town of Whiteclay, Nebraska. Most visibly, it subsists in the form of predatory alcohol corporations that have been responsible for exploiting and destroying indigenous lives on multiple levels simultaneously. All the while, bigger projects such as the Keystone XL Pipeline and a nearby Powertech uranium mine threaten to devour Native land. There are strong forces feeding off of the Lakota people from many angles, and the Lakota are stepping up and fighting back in ever-increasing numbers. At frequent, coordinated actions revolving around Whiteclay and alcoholism, a large AIM banner is almost always present. Though the scenic backdrop of the reservation remains the same, the activists holding the banner today are people whose parents were AIM activists in the 1970s, passing down their solid spirit of resistance to this generation.

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"The Last Best Place"

The sprawling state of Montana seems an unlikely setting for the next major battle against climate change. Compared to the Keystone XL protests that have spanned the continent, with mass sit-ins outside the White House and high-profile celebrity arrests, last year’s Coal Export Action in Helena was a modest yet groundbreaking achievement, with a few hundred participants and 23 arrests. In fact, in a state with one of the sparsest populations in the country, it was a huge triumph–the largest climate-related act of civil disobedience in Montana’s history–and the first time issues surrounding coal export mining have broken into Montana’s public discourse and press. In addition to opening a floodgate of mine development, the state’s incoming mine and railroad proposals pose a direct health threat to local residents and destroy more land. If successful in blocking the development of new coal mines in Montana, the Coal Export Action will not only be protecting Montana’s valuable agricultural resources, but will also prevent further pollution from coal trains running throughout the Pacific Northwest. In doing so, it will be setting a powerful precedent towards advancing clean energy solutions.

We arrived in Helena after a couple of days of driving through endless green mountains, right as the Coal Export Action was wrapping up the last of their arraignments and legal paperwork. Several people emerged from the courthouse, just down the street from City Hall, where the rotunda had been the site of a week of civil disobedience. The place where activists and residents gathered against coal export mining and delivered their demands to Attorney General Steve Bullock was, by that point, deserted. The sunlit halls were also eerily quiet.

Although demand for coal is dropping, the coal mining industry grows, largely to supply developing foreign markets. Arch Coal chose Montana, the state dubbed “The Last Best Place” for the construction of the Otter Creek Mine—and, by extension, the Tongue River Railroad. The fate of Arch Coal’s proposed mining projects lies in the hands of the Montana State Land Board. The Board proceeded with the decision-making process, but the Department of Environmental Quality halted the decision, amidst community dissent, marking a temporary victory for the Coal Export Action. Arch Coal's application for the Otter Creek Mine is currently being reviewed by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. During the open comment period, over 2,000 people raised concerns about environmental and climate issues.

The DEQ's draft environmental impact statement is expected later this year. Following a second comment period, a final decision on the Otter Creek Mine permit will likely be made by early 2014. In the meantime, the proposed Tongue River Railroad is forced to revise its environmental impact statement, while the Coal Export Action is organizing a targeted awareness campaign against candy corporation, Mars, Inc., whose heir, Forrest Mars Jr., is a major shareholder of the Tongue River Railroad project.

People interested in raising awareness are encouraged to join the Coal Export Action’s sticker campaign by seeking stores selling Mars candy (e.g. M&Ms, Snickers, Milky Way, Skittles, Twix, Starburst, 3 Musketeers) and place informative stickers on them that will alert consumers that their money would be financing coal.

Of the 23 people arrested during the week of action, 14 attempted to go to trial using a "necessity defense," arguing that the urgency of climate change necessitates direct action. Having recently been denied this option, the defendants are now pleading "no contest." The Coal Export Action calls on courts across the country to take this defense more seriously in cases of climate activism.

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Occupy the Farm

Occupy the Farm (OTF) began on April 22, 2012, when over a hundred activists began planting crops on an unused plot of land in Albany, California. Like the date—Earth Day—the site was chosen for its significance as the target of a decades-long struggle to preserve one of the last pieces of prime agricultural land in the area. The Gill Tract, as OTF’s home is known, contains the last Class One soil left in the East Bay and is located within a thermal belt that provides some of the best farming conditions statewide. Just three miles from the UC Berkeley campus, the fourteen-acre plot is all that remains of the original 100-acre Gill Nursery purchased by the University of California in 1928. Since the 1990s, community groups, local residents, and UC faculty have fought to establish a sustainable urban farm on the land, pressuring the university administration to protect the school’s legacy as a pioneering institution for sustainable agricultural research. Despite this history, the majority of the Gill Tract is currently being used for research related to genetic modification of corn, and is slated to be rezoned for commercial development in 2013.

Our day with Occupy the Farm began with a morning meeting in the backyard of a nearby house, where an ever-growing diameter of activists circled around a picnic table spread with fresh fruit, tea, and breads. The action plan for the day was straightforward: go in; weed; harvest; get out; distribute.

Entering through a locked fence, we fanned out onto the huge plot of land to accomplish our mission as efficiently as possible. A staggering expanse of rows of GMO corn covered the land in the distance, while the patch farmed by OTF grew kale, squash, collard greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and countless other crops, some of which were planted during the group’s first direct action on Earth Day of April 2012.

A police officer moseyed over, asking “you know you’re trespassing, right?” After her question was met with silence, the cop left, only to return 45 minutes later accompanied by a colleague carrying a camera, who began filming the farmers. This prompted a few activists to immediately turn their own cameras on the police.

After tending the farm, everyone helped carry the haul outside into a van, out of which it would be distributed around Albany and to nearby neighborhoods deemed ‘food deserts’ due to their lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The farmers retired to a nearby park to debrief the day’s work, or as they call it, “harvest party” -- perhaps a more appropriate term for a fun day of food justice.

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Oakland Faces of Resistance

When he’s not teaching kids about urban agriculture, Ashoka Finley regularly tends to the Gill Tract farm with other folks involved in Occupy the Farm. Ashoka became involved in activism in 2009 during the budget cuts movement at UC Berkeley and participated in the occupation of Wheeler Hall. Forty-three students locked themselves inside the building for 12 hours, while thousands of supporters waited outside in a standoff with riot police.  

Taylor Kohles also became an activist during the student movement at UC-Berkeley, and went on to organize with Occupy Oakland, getting involved in projects such as Oakland Occupy Patriarchy and the East Bay Solidarity Network, a mutual support organization of workers and tenants. A new initiative of theirs, Foreclosure and Eviction Free Oakland (FEFO) aims to stop all evictions - foreclosure, rent, and squat - in West Oakland.

Lindsay Grace moved to Oakland from L.A. two years ago and has organized with Oakland Occupy Patriarchy. In her interview she speaks about the Feminist Vigilante Gangs march, which was meant to encourage women, queer and trans folks to come together to physically confront patriarchy, and have one anothers’ backs at all times. Oakland Occupy Patriarchy was formed out of a need for a space to address patriarchy within the Occupy Oakland commune/camp and wider community. A self-defense class, Offensive Feminist, came out of the group and continues to meet weekly. The Facebook event for the next class can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/123085451197090

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