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Remembering Joye Braun: Water Protector, Grandmother, Revolutionary

Previously unreleased interview with Talli Nauman at Standing Rock captures the essence of a leader and a movement

Last week we lost a powerful voice in the Water Protector and Climate Justice movements. Joye Braun (Wambli Wiyan Ka’win) of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Nation passed away at her home on Sunday, November 13th. Her untimely death at 53 leaves a void that no one can fill.  Esperanza Project contributing editor Talli Nauman, […]

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Anti-Pipeline Grandmothers Launch Treaty People Gathering

Native pipeline fighters invite sympathizers to weeklong Line 3 opposition, shifting political center of gravity for climate justice

ST. PAUL, Minnesota – At the state Governor’s Mansion on Anishinaabe (Ojibway) ancestral land, 1,000 grandmothers rallied “for future generations” May 26th. They timed the event to punctuate a call from organizers worldwide urging allies to attend the Treaty People Gathering for non-violent direct actions against oil pipelines during the first week of June 2021. […]

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LaDonna fights on in the resistance of Native youth

Late pipeline resister inspires young Water Protectors

FORT YATES, N.D. – As the Standing Rock Sioux Nation prepared for services April 16-19 honoring late water protector LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Native youth carried on the crusade to defend treaty land from pipeline construction, which she inspired when she established the Sacred Stone Camp near here five years ago. Known as Tamaka Waste […]

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Lakota call out inequity in law enforcement at U.S. Capitol riot

‘Overcriminalizing protests led by people of color... no accountability for white supremacist acts of violence’

PHILIP, South Dakota – The difference in law enforcement handling of peaceful Native pipeline resisters compared to that of the violent mob that breached the U.S. Capitol Building was an inequity not lost on Indian Country. “At a time when white rioters are being let off the hook after raiding the nation’s Capitol and driving […]

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Standing Rock Water Protectors Sue Police, Security Forces

Class action suit claims law enforcement ‘discriminatory’ in Standing Rock-DAPL conflict

BISMARCK, ND — Law enforcement and private security agencies that employed attack dogs, pepper spray and water cannons against Standing Rock water protectors will have to stand trial next August — not for use of excessive force, but for closing a road. Water protectors have secured an August 2021 jury trial date in their class […]

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'Eviction Notice' for the Black Snake

As courts let oil flow, Oyate draws on Ft. Laramie Treaty to eject 'bad men'

Inspired by the indigenous-led Black Hills #Landback demonstration here earlier this summer, the Great Plains Action Society and other non-profits began circulating an “Eviction Notice” to the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as the Keystone XL Pipeline.

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DAPL Owner Appeals Shutdown Decision

Company cites billions in losses; Sioux Nations insist on environmental assessment

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nicole Ducheneaux had it right: As lead counsel on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s case to stop the oil flow of the Dakota Access Pipeline in unceded 1851 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory, she could claim a win when a federal judge recently ordered a shutdown.

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Tribes nationwide cheer DAPL shutdown

The victory represents one of a superfecta of four wins for water protectors

FT. YATES, North Dakota — Tribal leaders and constituents across Lakota Territory and elsewhere welcomed a hard-won court order on July 6 to shut off the oil flow in the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) within 30 days. “Today is a historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the many people who have supported […]

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Still Standing at Standing Rock

Youth activism + legal advocacy spell victory for Water Protectors

After years of legal battle and a historic grassroots resistance, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has achieved a long-sought victory.

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From Encampment to Ecovillage at Standing Rock

Sacred Stone's LaDonna Brave Bull Allard: Her call to a lost nation. Part I.

Editor’s Note: Standing Rock movement founder LaDonna Allard left this life on April 10, 2021, after a battle with brain cancer at the age of 64. Mourners from around the world joined hearts on social media for days afterwards. Here we share a telephone interview with LaDonna from August of 2019. When LaDonna Brave Bull […]

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Greta and Tokata at the Front Lines

Swedish climate activist's tour of Native America highlights indigenous youth activists, native rights

On a world tour for climate justice, Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg visited Native America Oct. 6-8, attracting a gymnasium full of enthusiasts at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, leading a march on Rapid City Hall alongside youth climate leader Tokata Iron Eyes, and speeding off to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.

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How the Women of Standing Rock Are Building Sovereign Economies

Water Protectors Take the Movement’s Lessons Forward

For Sicangu Lakota water protector Cheryl Angel, Standing Rock helped her define what she stands against: an economy rooted in extraction of resources and exploitation of people and planet. It wasn’t until she’d had some distance that the vision of what she stands for came into focus. “Now I understand that sustainable sovereign economies are needed to […]

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Women of Standing Rock: LaDonna Brave Bull Allard

Lakota grandmother and Sacred Stone Village founder on sovereignty, healing and touching the Earth: Part II

In the harrowing days of the Standing Rock resistance to the Black Snake, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard — Tamakawastewin, or Good Earth Woman — became an icon, though she’s quick to step away from such titles with her self-deprecating humor. The Lakota historian’s fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from plowing past her son’s […]

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Sovereign Sisters in Lakota Lands

Water Protector Cheryl Angel on a Magical Staff, the Black Hills and Economic Sovereignty

Lakota Spiritual Activist Cheryl Angel believes in listening to her dreams – the ones that come to her at night as she sleeps, and the ones that arrive as messengers from the road as she travels the globe. She has been traveling extensively over the past two years, connecting with indigenous and non-indigenous women and […]

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Many Standing Rocks: Three Years and Still Fighting

An interview with Sicangu Lakota Spiritual Activist and Water Protector Cheryl Angel

The third anniversary of the Water Protectors movement at Standing Rock passed by quietly earlier this month. With the pipeline construction industry booming across the U.S. and Canada, Donald Trump seeking to bulldoze the cancelled Keystone XL Pipeline through more than 800 miles of unceded Lakota treaty territory, and at least nine state governments working […]

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From Ferguson to the Frontera

Elizabeth Vega: “Music and art should be the heartbeat of every movement.”

Elizabeth Vega has been incorporating art into her own work – as a journalist, a poet, a hospice and social worker and an activist – for decades. But it wasn’t until the shooting death of Mike Brown at the hands of St. Louis police officers that she began to truly understand the power of art […]

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Standing Rock: Feeding a movement

Above: Mick Waggoner and Bonnie Wykman, above, run a tight ship at the Southwest Camp Hogan.  Story and photos by Rain Stites Their day begins before the sun rises. Fellow campers slumber while Mick Waggoner and the rest of the kitchen crew quietly tiptoe through the makeshift kitchen of foldable tables and camp stoves. Lanterns […]

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VOICES FROM STANDING ROCK

They came from all over the world to lend a hand. In their own voices, they tell us why. 

By Tracy L. Barnett and Tami Brunk For Intercontinental Cry and The Esperanza Project OCETI SAKOWIN CAMP, N.D.—A winter lull in activities for Water Protectors at Standing Rock is about to come to an end. An executive order confirming the incoming administration’s commitment to forge ahead – not just with the Dakota Access Pipeline, but […]

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Lessons from Standing Rock

By Tracy L. Barnett STEELE, N.D., Dec 8 – We only made it 70 miles from Oceti Sakowin Camp in Standing Rock when a whiteout and fierce winds forced us to seek refuge in this tiny town, where the Kidder County Ambulance District and a wonderful EMT nurse named Mona Thompson took us in like […]

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