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Showing posts from May, 2017

Clear Sailing for Giant Sioux Wind Farm

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This article appeared on Indian Country Media Network in 2017.  For more on topics like this, see my book,  American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle.... The Yankton Sioux flag snaps in a stiff Plains breeze; the tribe is part of a coalition set to harness the wind. A   coalition of Sioux tribes is poised to harness the wind. Long held sacred by the Great Sioux Nation, or Oceti Sakowin, the wind may soon provide tribal communities with clean, renewable power and sustainable economic development. “We tribes see ourselves as custodians of the environment,” said Oceti Sakowin Power Authority (OSPA) board member Dan Gargan, Rosebud Sioux. “Producing clean energy is something we’ve wanted for a long time.”   The endeavor has taken a lot of work, and in the process obstacles have become assets. Oceti Sakowin means “Great Sioux Nation” in Lakota/Dakota, and its vision encompasses the possibility that even more Sioux nations in the U.S. and Canada might join the current group—th

Building on Standing Rock, Native Americans Lead Climate March

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This article appeared in 2017 in Rural America In These Times.  For more on topics like this, see my book,  American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle.... “We are at a major movement moment,” says Judith LeBlanc, a member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and director of the Native Organizers Alliance (NOA), which helps indigenous advocacy groups build their organizations and capacity. LeBlanc watches tribal members from around the country gather near the U.S. Capitol to lead the April 29 People’s Climate March, seen here. She credits the past year’s Standing Rock demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline for bringing awareness to indigenous struggles and to the continued threats to land and water by a range of industries. Grass dancer Winfield Wounded Eye. “Standing Rock was the largest continuous protest in U.S. history,” says LeBlanc. As a result, she says, a network of tribal leaders and grassroots people and groups have coalesced around the issue of climate

Lost Bones, Damage and Harassment at Sacred Site

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This story appeared in Indian Country Media Network in 2017.  For more on topics like this, see my book,  American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle.... H orrifying” is how Lydia Johnson, shown right, described an ordeal her Shoshone community has faced in recent weeks. Johnson chairs the Te-Moak Western Shoshone in addition to her own Battle Mountain Band. The Band has taken the lead in protecting the Tosawihi Quarries, a tribal sacred site in north-central Nevada, from destruction by gold mining. The Shoshone have used the Quarries for more than 10,000 years, going there to collect their sacred white flint, fashion it into weapons and tools and use it in ceremonies. They hunted there, gathered medicine plants, buried their dead and more. Tosawihi means “White Knives,” an ancestral tribal name that acknowledges the importance of the place and its revered white stone to the Shoshones, said tribal council member and former Band chair Joseph Holley. Gold lies in veins bene