First-Ever Native American Presidential Forum Showcases Growing Electoral Clout + UPDATE!
This article was first published in In These Times magazine in August 2019. For more on topics like this, please see my book, American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle... . UPDATE SEPT 6, 2019 — As soon as the lights went out on the first-ever Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, host organization Four Directions headed for North Carolina. There the voting-rights group, headed by OJ and Barb Semans, Rosebud Sioux, began delivering Lumbee tribe members to early-voting offices for a special election. Then Hurricane Dorian hit. The state closed voting offices in four counties, including the one where most Lumbees live. Determined to fight for voting equality, Four Directions petitioned the state to make up the lost time. “We got the hours,” said Four Directions consultant Bret Healy. “ We faced North Dakota blizzards getting tribal members to the polls in 2018. Now, we’re working through a hurricane.” “‘We the people’ has never meant ‘all the people,’”