#native movement

[cleoashbee]

blood

Our people don’t come in parts; you’re either native or you’re not. If you connect to it, your indigenous blood will speak to you...through you. Don’t let their society colonize your heart.

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Wounded Knee II, South Dakota, February 27, 1973 On February 27, 1973 American Indian Movement leaders, together with 200 activists and Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Reservation who opposed Oglala tribal chairman Richard Wilson, occupied the town of Wounded Knee in protest against Wilson's administration, as well as against the federal government's persistent failures to honor its treaties with American Indian nations. The U.S. government law enforcement, including FBI agents, surrounded Wounded Knee the same day with armed reinforcements. It lasted 71 days. "Wounded Knee happened because Indian people wanted to survive as Indians and there wasn't any way to survive, so we made a stand and made a statement, but now Indian people are beginning to rebound, rebound according to their [concept of] "Beauty." And that's really what's necessary.to understand: Indian people have to become free again." --Russell Means Public opinion polls revealed widespread sympathy for the American Indians at Wounded Knee. They also received support from the Congressional Black Caucus as well as various actors, activists, and prominent public figures, including Marlon Brando, Dick Gregory, Johnny Cash, Angela Davis, Jane Fonda, William Kunstler, and Tom Wicker. Later, AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means were indicted on charges related to the events, but their 1974 case was dismissed by the federal court for prosecutorial misconduct, a decision upheld on appeal. What has changed in Pine Ridge, SD since?

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"To heal will require real effort, and a change of heart, from all of us. To heal means that we will begin to look upon one another with respect and tolerance instead of prejudice, distrust and hatred. We will have to teach our children-as well as ourselves-to love the diversity of humanity....We can do it. Yes, you and I and all of us together. Now is the time. Now is the only possible time. Let the Great Healing begin." ~Leonard Peltier

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"I wish to support the petition for clemency for Leonard Peltier. Mr. Peltier's health is said to be worsening. I am deeply concerned and I appeal to the concerned authorities in the United States to positively consider the petition on humanitarian grounds" --The Dalai Lama

Please Sign these Petitions: Amnesty International: http://ow.ly/nCxfk AVAAZ: http://ow.ly/nCisf  Photo of Dalai Lama by © Phil Borges

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"Who is Afraid of Black Indians ?"

[iloveancestry]

American Indian fishing and treaty rights in Washington, 40 years today after the 1974 Boldt decision.  On Feb. 12, 1974, U.S. District Judge George Boldt ruled in favor of 14 treaty tribes, upholding the language of their treaties that entitled them to half the salmon and steelhead catch in Washington. Yet Si Blue "the woman who talks", Janet McCloud "The Rosa Parks of the American Indian Movement" March 30, 1934 – November 25, 2003 Yet Si blue, also know as Janet McCloud and born into family of Chief Seattle was a prominent American Indian and indigenous peoples activist. Her activism helped lead to the 1974 Boldt Decision, for which she was dubbed, "The Rosa Parks of the American Indian Movement." McCloud fought for Indian treaty rights, asserting their right to hunt and fish as guaranteed by the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek. As part of that treaty, native tribes gave up much of their land to the U.S. government in return of guaranteed hunting and fishing rights. McCloud also was a respected leader among the Tulalip Tribes. She laid the groundwork for some of the things the Tulalip have been able to accomplish, especially in the exercising of their sovereignty. McCloud used her influence to found several organizations designed to promote the rights of American Indians such the Indigenous Women's Network, the Survival of American Indians Association and the Northwest Indian Women's Circle.  One of her proudest accomplishments was the opening of the Sapa Dawn Center near Yelm, where she taught American Indian youths about their culture and history. Born on the Tulalip Reservation, Janet Renecker, the oldest of three girls and a descendant of Chief Seattle's family, lived a childhood marked by poverty. She married and divorced young before meeting a Nisqually tribal fisherman and electrical lineman named Don McCloud in the early 1950s. Janet, Don and many others formed the Survival of American Indian Association to fight against the assault on American Indian culture. Janet was the editor of the organization's important paper - Survival News - The articles in Survival News told the native side of the fishing-rights story. McCloud pored through donated legal books, quoted from the state's charges against tribal fishing people, and wrote rebuttals based on treaty language. Survival News articles were real because the editor - and authors - fished and were jailed during the struggle. In the manner of the time, the American Indians demonstrated as well as fished, and in the language of the time, the demonstrations were labeled "fish-ins" in the press. The name stuck and fish-ins became official acts of defiance. McCloud learned some of the movement's tactics from Dick Gregory, an inspiring Black American comedian turned civil-rights activist. Gregory advised the American Indians to attract attention by getting arrested and staying in jail. Eventually, the American Indians' efforts paid off. On Feb. 12, 1974, U.S. District Judge George Boldt ruled in favor of 14 treaty tribes, upholding the language of their treaties that entitled them to half the salmon and steelhead catch in Washington. Along with catapulting her into the status of civil rights leader, the fish wars brought Janet McCloud in touch with her native spirituality. During the 1970s, McCloud spread the message of native spirituality and human rights worldwide. She traveled the globe, speaking about indigenous women's rights and social justice. In 1971, she traveled to Williamsburg, Va., as a delegate to a national conference on corrections, advocating for American Indians in prisons. She urged, among other things, that prison systems support traditional religion as a path toward reconciliation. McCloud established her home and the surrounding 10 acres (40,000 m2) in Yelm, Washington as a retreat, naming it the Sapa Dawn Center, "Sapa" meaning grandfather, the name being a tribute to Don McCloud, who died in April 1985. Leaders of the American Indian Movement - Dennis Banks, Russell Means and others - came to Sapa Dawn and its sweat lodge before launching their 1973 takeover at Wounded Knee, S.D. Yet Si blue once wrote: "When all is going crazy . . . our people can come back to the center to find the calming effect; to reconnect with their spiritual self." In August 1985, 300 women from many countries found their way to Sapa Dawn to talk about concerns they shared. "There was no motel in Yelm then," recalls McCloud. "So we put up tepees. One woman said: `Where's the motel?' I said, `Here's a key: tepee number one or tepee number two.'" The women camped for five days, talking about social, economic and family problems troubling native people throughout the Western Hemisphere. That was the birth of what now is called the Indigenous Women's Network, a coalition championing native women, families and tribal sovereignty from Chile to Canada, and which adopted McCloud as a founding mother. For many people, McCloud could be considered the founding mother to dozens of American Indian organizations because so many people have traveled to Yelm over the years seeking her wisdom. According to the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, "An extended series of physical confrontations with state and federal authorities - dubbed 'fish-ins' - and attendant courtroom actions resulted not only in the eventual reaffirmation of Indian treaty rights in the region, but also national attention for several key local activists, among them Janet McCloud." Bennett, who is also mentioned in the encyclopedia, agreed. "Janet is the most famous Tulalip Indian," she recalled. "If you went to Europe and said, 'Name me a Tulalip Indian,' a lot of people there would know Janet." 

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[iloveancestry]

A Honoring of American Indian Activist Russell Means 

January 27th, 2014 in NYC. Spread the word! Pearl Means, Christian Camargo and Ed Vassallo cordially invite you to an evening of World Music, Reading and a Special Screening in honor of Russell Means at the Classic Stage Company located at 136 East 13th Street, New York City. Purchase tickets online now: http://russellmeanslegacy.com/?p=1 Ticket For Sale: $40.00 each All proceeds to benefit the Russell Means T.R.E.A.T.Y. Educational Endowment “I hope to be remembered as a fighter and as a patriot who never feared controversy—and not just for Indians. When I fight for my people’s rights, when I stand up for our treaties, when I protest government lies and illegal seizures and unlawful acts, I defend all Americans, even the bigoted and misguided” ~Russell Means, in "Where White Men Fear to Tread" See you on January 27th, 2014  For any inquiries, please email [email protected] Russell Means Bio, Read More...http://iloveancestry.com/ancestors/indigenous-native-american-indians/item/120-russell-means-american-indian-movement-activist-actor-oglala-lakota Photo Credit of Russell Means: Bill Hay

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"Who is Afraid of Black Indians ?"

[iloveancestry]

"Hollywood writers and directors are still using ‘em for livestock. They somehow just can’t seem to bring it around to give the truth about Indians." —Will Sampson (1933 – 1987)

Read More…http://iloveancestry.com/ancestors/indigenous-native-american-indians/item/83-will-sampson-muscogee-creek-actor

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"Who is Afraid of Black Indians ?”

[iloveancestry]

THE BLACK HILLS ARE NOT FOR SALE! Learn Why... "Give back the Black Hills. It's not your business what they do with them." --Aaron Huey The Black Hills stretch across western South Dakota, northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana and constitute a sacred landscape for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Omaha. To the Lakota, they are Paha Sapa, “the heart of everything that is.” The Black Hills were the casualty of one of the most blatant land grabs in U.S. history and continue to be the site of a legal and political confrontation. Rick Two-Dogs, an Oglala Lakota medicine man, explains: “All of our origin stories go back to this place. We have a spiritual connection to the Black Hills that can’t be sold. I don’t think I could face the Creator with an open heart if I ever took money for it.” In the rolling, forested highlands of the Black Hills, four thousand archaeological sites spanning 12,000 years attest to a long relationship with native people. An oblong ridge circles the Black Hills, separating them from the surrounding prairie grasslands and making them “one of the most unusual environmental features in the United States,” according to anthropologist Peter Nabokov. In the 1700s and 1800s, the Lakota ceremonial season began each spring with the stampede of buffalo from the Black Hills through Buffalo Gap. As the people followed the buffalo, they would go to places like Devils Tower and Bear Butte, their pathway forming the shape of a buffalo’s head. As Lakota scholar Vine Deloria tells it: “In the spring, the people would follow the buffalo herd and they’d have to do a series of four ceremonies, the last one of which would either end up at Devils Tower or Bear Butte depending on what year it was and what the situation was. This is written down now in a book on star knowledge” which illustrates the relationship between the constellations, land formations and movement of Lakota bands within the Black Hills. The Lakota believe that permanent occupancy of the Black Hills was set aside for the birds and the animals, not for humans. The U.S. government initially tried to prevent settlement of the Black Hills, having signed the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Laramie, which promised 60 million acres of the Black Hills “for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupancy of the Sioux.” White Settlers were aware that the Black Hills were sacred, considered the womb of Mother Earth and the location of ceremonies, vision quests, and burials. Initially, the newcomers accepted the fact that the Hills belonged to the Lakota—until gold was discovered.  When they heard the rumors of gold, they clamored for access to a vast area that had previously been avoided for fear of American Indian attacks and because of the 1851 Treaty. In 1857, Lakota leaders gathered at Bear Butte to discuss the increasing number of white invaders in the Black Hills. As settlers continued to ignore the treaty boundaries of the Black Hills, and as the government began to build military posts within them to assure the safety of the westward moving settlers, a second treaty was signed by a few Lakota leaders, but did not fulfill the amount of Lakota men signature required to be valid. It reduced their land base to 20 million acres.  This was the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie, the one to which all current legal arguments refer. In 1874, the government allowed General George Armstrong Custer to explore the Hills—ostensibly to find a place to build a fort, but Custer was accompanied by geologists and miners who confirmed the presence of gold.  This was a clear violation of even the second, more limited, treaty. Discovery of gold sparked a rush of miners and settlers, and the government tried to threaten the Lakota into selling their remaining 20 million acres.  When this didn’t work, Congress enacted a new treaty in 1877, with only 10% of the adult male Lakota population signing it, which seized the land, resulting in war and eventual defeat for the Lakota—though Custer died for his sins in 1876 at Little Bighorn.  In the twentieth century, the Lakota began a concerted legal effort to reclaim the Black Hills. A federal judge who reviewed the case in the 1970s commented: “A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing will never, in all probability, be found in our history.” Now, the issue is whether tribal sacred lands taken in the nineteenth century can be bought and sold in the twenty-first. After a century of struggle to file claims in court against the illegality of the 1868 treaty, the Indian Claims Commission, the Court of Claims, and finally the Supreme Court in 1980 recognized the 8 Lakota Nations’ rights to the part of the Black Hills specified in the 1868 treaty.  But instead of ordering the government to return the land, the Claims Commission awarded a financial sum equal to the land’s value in 1877 plus interest. This sum now is considerable amount but still much smaller than the value of the natural resources which have been extracted from the Black Hills, estimated at $4 billion. The Lakota have refused to accept the money on the grounds that one cannot buy and sell sacred land. Says Johnson Holy Rock, a Lakota elder and former chairman of the Oglala Sioux, “We don’t think of the air and water in terms of dollars and cents.” Two political plans in the 1980s (one spearheaded by Senator Bill Bradley) to return 1.3 million acres of federal land in the Black Hills were defeated by the South Dakota congressional delegation, including Senator Tom Daschle. Over the years, the Black Hills have experienced mining, logging, and recreational uses, often in violation of Lakota beliefs. Mining for gold, coal and uranium pollutes water. Cyanide heap-leach gold mines, such as Homestake and Gilt Edge, use cyanide to extract gold from crushed ore. The cyanide mixes with other chemicals, producing toxic chemicals which can leach into the groundwater. This sort of mining leaves huge open pits which scar the landscape, and frequently the companies are allowed to abandon the mines without cleaning up or restoring the land to its original state. Two sacred places within the Black Hills, Bear Butte and Devils Tower are on public land and are protected from natural resource extraction. However, both have endured conflicts over recreational use. Bear Butte, known as Mato Paha, has long been a site for ceremonies, vision quests, and important tribal meetings, though most Americans see the dramatic little mountain as just one of the many geographically stunning outcroppings in the Black Hills.  Bear Butte became a South Dakota state park in 1961, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. To accommodate different uses of the park, the state created two different trails, one for hikers and one for native religious practitioners, which leads people to a designated ceremonial area. Both trails are open to the public, however non-native users are requested to stay on trail and not disturb prayer bundles or individuals in ceremony. In 1982 Lakota and Tsistsistas (Cheyenne) elders sued the state of South Dakota to prevent deeper incursions into the park to increase tourism, including a parking lot, roads, and campgrounds. They also sought to limit the state’s ability to establish new regulations requiring visitors, including traditional religious practitioners, to obtain permits.  The U.S. District Court’s opinion Fools Crow v. Gullet, found that the American Indians could not have “full, unrestricted, and uninterrupted religious use of Bear Butte” because that would constitute the state establishing a religion, and because the state’s right to open the landmark to the public was protected under the First Amendment. This was one of several cases in the 1980s which showcased the failure of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to protect native religious practices on public land. Other sacred places in the Black Hills include Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, Angostura Springs, Harney Peak, and Wind Cave National Park. The Lakota believe that the Wind Cave is the place where their ancestors emerged. The site was occupied by Lakota activists and elders in 1981 to protest the 1980 Supreme Court decision that offered financial restitution for the taking of the Black Hills. The same year marked the beginning of the occupation of Yellow Thunder Camp by American Indian Movement activists, an occupation which lasted for several years but was ultimately disbanded since they were denied permits for permanent structures. Report by Amy Corbin  "Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government." --Buffalo Bill "...the taking of the Black Hills [from the Lakota] is the most ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing ever perpetrated on a people by the United States government." --United States Supreme Court, 1980.

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