The seeds of Standing Rock have taken root and are growing all across the northern US, as water protectors from Montana to Minnesota and many points between raise the #LandBack flag and fight back against the Keystone XL, Enbridge Line 3 and many other infrastructure pipelines that they believe, if completed, would seal our fate in a world hurling toward climate catastrophe.
KYKOTSMOVI VILLAGE, Arizona – Some 30 years ago, when Navajo Nation member Nicole Horseherder returned to her Native land after college, her hopes of building a home like her grandmother’s near here were dampened because wells had dried up with massive coal strip mining and power plant development that drained the underground water tables while polluting Diné and Hopi communities.
RAPID CITY, S.D. – Isolating herself from family after her Covid-19 diagnosis on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, Sicangu Lakota great-grandmother Cheryl Angel found little choice but to traipse from one lonely hotel room to another for shelter. Angel, a veteran Water Protector and self-described Sacred Activist, vowed that if she survived the deadly contagious […]
As I write, a very red Mars is approaching a Blue Moon – the second full moon of the season, and the first blue moon on a Halloween in a long, long time. Astrologers are having a field day with the particular lineup of planets that are traversing our heavens this election season, and while […]
The legacy of Lakota Territory treaty violation came back to haunt city officials in the freezing wake of South Dakota’s 2020 Native American Day, as #Landback activists defied city ordinance to set up the tipi encampment to shelter homeless people.
DEADWOOD, South Dakota – Descendants of both the original residents and the settlers of the Great Plains brought their experience and philosophies to bear on contemporary challenges of race relations at the 28th West River History Conference Oct. 8-10, here in the heart of ancestral Lakota Territory. “Hope is the only thing that ties us […]
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 […]
“Having access to reliable connectivity is a necessity, not a luxury anymore,” said Petra Wilson, adding, “It’s going to give tribes control over it.”
RAPID CITY – Participants from numerous grassroots groups tackling life-or-death issues of Native homeless and other community members highly vulnerable to the Covid-19 pandemic here rallied for an autonomous “command center” at a Sept. 11 gathering outside the civic center. Organizers, speaking with a megaphone, pressured the Rapid City Police Department representative in attendance at […]
RAPID CITY, South Dakota — When Native American Natural Foods launched Tanka Bars and Tanka Bites in 2007 it had a mission: “To heal the people and our Mother Earth by building a company that innovates real food products based on the traditional values of Native American respect for all living things by living in […]
BEAR BUTTE – About 100 people from all across the land gathered at this native sacred site Aug. 9 to pray and participate in the Sturgis Medicine Wheel Ride 2020 to raise awareness about the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Children and Two-Spirit relatives. Native women motorcyclists led the 70-mile ride from Bear […]
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.
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.
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 […]
Pine Ridge Matriarch’s Mother’s Day message: ‘This is our land, so you cannot say anything!’
Ten U.S. states and the federal District of Columbia joined tribal government opposition to the KXL oil pipeline construction on May 7, calling for a moratorium on all permits for fossil-fuel infrastructure projects during the Covid-19 pandemic. The request follows an outcry in Indian country over ongoing Keystone XL Pipeline construction despite the most recent […]
Earth Day 2020 marked a milestone for The Esperanza Project. We took our first baby steps into the world of broadcasting with our very first online program: Esperanza is the Antidote, a lineup of Esperanza Project collaborators from the USA to Argentina.
The threat “causes eerie memories for us with the infected smallpox blankets that were distributed to tribes intentionally in the 1800s,” said Faith Spotted Eagle, a member of the Brave Heart Society and Yankton Sioux Tribe. “It is absolutely similar, whereby we lost thousands of people in our tribes along the Missouri River.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Creature from the Black Lagoon loomed over the offices of the Interior Department last week as non-profit consumer advocate Public Citizen joined the chorus of voices condemning the proposed rollback of the bedrock National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. “Trump’s Interior Secretary is an Oil Lobbyist,” declared the giant video […]
Our Top 10 stories of 2019 reflect the hunger for fresh ideas and different voices — people who are tackling the issues of climate change, environmental destruction, mass migration, food security, femicide and human rights — especially indigenous rights. The popularity of these stories also show that people are ready for younger and alternative visions — and those, as you may have noticed, are our specialty.