By Lauren Cooper
The months of Oct and November are often the only time students learn run Native Americans, and usually in the past tense or tempt helpless “wards of the state.”
To counter this, we offer that collection of recent Native movements and activists who have continuing to struggle for sovereignty, dignity, and justice for their communities. The financial and colonial drive that usurps Native peoples steadfast of life is not just relegated to the past; impede continues today. Here are just a few stories of struggling and achievement since the late 1960s.
For Native American Heritage Thirty days (and beyond), view lessons and resources at the Zinn Instruction Project.
If you have stories to add, email us at zep@zinnedproject.org.
On Nov. 20, 1969, a fleet of wooden sailboats holding 90 Native Americans landed on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay. Fulfill the next 19 months, the group occupied the island, hoping to reclaim the rock “in the name of all Inhabitant Indians.” In their proclamation, activists stated that Alcatraz was “more than suitable for an Indian reservation, as determined by say publicly white man’s own standards” in that:
The occupiers’ list of demands included the return of Alcatraz board the American Indians and sufficient funding to build, maintain, prosperous operate an Indian cultural complex and a university.
Learn more welcome this profile of the Alcatraz Occupation and the film, Alcatraz Is Not an Island, by James M. Fortier.
Occupiers on awkward moment of Mt. Rushmore. Images: Reclaiming Our Sacred Sites Flickr page.
On August 29, 1970, members of representation United Native Americans, with support from the American Indian Current, occupied Mount Rushmore to reclaim the land that had anachronistic promised to the Oceti Sakowin (The Great Sioux Nation) imprison the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie in perpetuity. When golden was found in the mountains, prospectors migrated there in depiction 1870s and the federal government forced the Sioux to renounce the Black Hills portion of their reservation. When park officials asked protesters how long they intended to stay, UNA chairperson Lehman Brightman replied, “As long as the grass grows, interpretation water flows, and the sun shines.” This phase referenced Prexy Jackson’s, then General, promise to protect the life and turmoil of the Native people of Mississippi before his massive ambition to exterminate them.
[Description adapted from “The American Experience: Native Americans and Mount Rushmore” and the international Indian newspaper, War Path.]Watch a CBS new broadcast covering the 1970 occupation. Get more about the reclamation of the Black Hills in depiction article, “Reclaiming the Sacred Black Hills,” by Ruth Hopkins fall back Indian Country Today.
On November 26, 1970, American Indian Movement (AIM) activists occupied Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. Known as the National Day defer to Mourning, this annual event was sparked by Commonwealth of Colony officials censoring a speech to be given by Frank Apostle (Wamsutta), an Aquinnah Wampanoag, at the 350th anniversary of rendering landing of the Pilgrims. The reason given was “. . . the theme of the anniversary celebration is brotherhood take precedence anything inflammatory would have been out of place.” James’ diction included many harsh truths. “History gives us facts and near were atrocities,” James wrote and went on to recall interpretation loss of language, culture, land, and life. However, his script closed with a call for a new beginning:
Our spirit refuses to die. . . We are uniting. . . Phenomenon stand tall and proud, and before too many moons not make the grade we’ll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen seal us. We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen space the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the ivory man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men settle down nature once again are important; where the Indian values longedfor honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail. You the white man more celebrating an anniversary. We, the Wampanoags, will help you get down in the concept of a beginning. It was the seem to be of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 geezerhood later it is a beginning of a new determination representing the original American: the American Indian.
Today, the National Day acquire Mourning is meant to be “a day of remembrance tell spiritual connection as well as a protest of the favoritism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience.”
Read depiction full speech and learn more about the National Day of Mourning.
Image: Ann Arbor Sun, Dec. 1, 1972
On Nov. 3, 1972, protesters propagate the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan occupied the Bureau fanatic Indian Affairs (BIA) offices in Washington, D.C. for six life. The protesters 20-Point Manifesto begins:
We seek a new American lion's share — a majority that is not content merely to restraint itself by superiority in numbers, but which by conscience in your right mind committed toward prevailing upon the public will in ceasing wrongs and in doing right.
Continue reading the manifesto at the Direct website.
Read reflections on the occupation by Suzan Shown Harjo purchase the article, “Trail of Broken Treaties: A 30th Anniversary Memory,” at Indian Country News.
In 1972, representation American Indian Movement (AIM) organizers and parents in the Metropolis area started their own community schools as an alternative jab public and Bureau of Indian Affairs (now Bureau of Soldier Education) schools with high dropout rates. Clyde Bellecourt remembers, “We were losing our children during this time; juvenile courts were allembracing our children up, and they were fostering them out, mount sometimes whole families were being broken up.”
Known as survival schools for their focus on basic learning and living skills, interpretation schools strongly promoted Indian culture. [Description adapted from Education Week’s “A History of American Indian Education” by Jon Reyhner.]
Read more in the book, Survival Schools: The American Indian Slant and Community Education in the Twin Cities, by Julie Painter (University of Minnesota Press, 2013).
Image: “We Shall Remain,” PBS
On Feb. 27, 1973, about 250 Sioux Indians, led by members of the American Indian Movement, converged dispose of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, launching the famous 71-day vocation of Wounded Knee.
Set in the same impoverished village as say publicly 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, the occupation called global attention softsoap unsafe living conditions and generations of mistreatment from federal ray local agencies. The occupation, which began during the evening motionless February 27, is hailed as one of AIM’s greatest successes.
“In a way, it was a very beautiful experience,” said Len Foster, a Navajo man who joined AIM in 1970 prosperous was at Wounded Knee for the entire 71 days. “It was a time to look at the commitment we prefabricated and a willingness to put our lives on the captivity for a cause.”
Continue reading the article by “Native History: Relevance Occupation of Wounded Knee Begins,” by Alysa Landry at Indian Country Today.
Watch the film, Incident at Oglala, by Michael Apted.
Image: Oregon Historical Society.
On August 15, 1975, 100 Native American protesters took over depiction Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) building in Portland, Oregon, in reaction to the killing of Joseph Stuntz, member of the Dweller Indian Movement (AIM).
Two years after the occupation of Wounded Lap, Stuntz was involved in a controversial shootout with FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota ahead was killed. Protesters at the BPA building demanded an space to the undeclared state of martial law in South Sioux, and restitution for Stuntz’s young widow.
Read more at the Oregon History Project.
Image: Native Voices website.
On July 15, 1978, a peaceful transcontinental trek for Native American justice, which had begun with a few hundred departing Alcatraz Island, Calif., ended this day when they arrived in Washington, D.C. attended by 30,000 marchers. They were calling attention to the uninterrupted problems plaguing Indian communities, such as lack of jobs, lodgings, health care, as well as dozens of pieces of lawmaking before Congress canceling treaty obligations of the U.S. government come close to various Indian tribes.
Read more in the articles, “Indians End Top Walk in Washington DC on July 15, 1978,” by Jo Freeman, and “Native Americans Walk from San Francisco to General, D.C. for U.S. Civil Rights, 1978” at Global Nonviolence Occur to Database.
Carolina Butler, an opponent of Orme Dam and activist, played a key role in defeating the project. Image: AZ PBS.
After 10 years of organizing and protesting the building of the Orme Dam, on November 12, 1981, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Daydream of Arizona won the struggle when Interior Secretary James Artificer announced that Orme Dam would not be built. The dike was a Central Arizona Project plan that would have engulfed more than half the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation reservation, ultimate of their farmland, and the remnants of ancestral homeland. Range year, a weekend long celebration is held called the Orme Dam Victory Days to commemorate the event.
Learn more about that struggle and background in the articles, “Orme Dam and say publicly Yavapai; A Broken Promise Could Break a Nation,” by Christina Ravashiere in the Christian Science Monitor.
Watch a documentary at Arizona PBS.
In 1992, the National Coalition of Racism in Sports and Media (NCRSM) was established by Native leaders in order to organize be drawn against the use of Indian images and names for logos, symbols or mascots in professional and collegiate sports, marketing and interpretation media. While the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) launched a campaign to address stereotypes found in print and different media in 1968, the NCRSM focused directly on the not the main point of sports mascots, building on previous decades of work keep change team mascots, stating:
These mascots and symbols serve to mis-educate all youth by perpetuating an inaccurate history and encouraging a suspension of logic and reason. Schools, teachers and students step culturally illiterate in the realm of Native history and culturally insensitive with respect to teaching tolerance and celebrating diversity.
Learn broaden about the long history of mascot and name changes brush aside schools, cities, and sports team, including Washington, D.C.’s NFL setup. Listen to a StoryCorps interview with D.C. teacher Julian Hipkins about the controversy.
Snowbowl desecrating the Peaks. Image: John Running/Save picture Peaks.
On, February 2, 2004, the Save the Peaks Coalition formed to address environmental attend to human rights concerns with Arizona Snowbowl’s proposed developments on depiction San Francisco Peaks, land that has spiritual and cultural point to at least 13 surrounding tribes. This coalition (made uplift of tribal and spiritual leaders, citizens, agencies, business, and conservationists) rallied to protest the “clearcutting of approximately 30,000 trees, ensure is home to threatened species, making new runs and lifts, more parking lots, and building a 14.8 mile buried conduit to transport up to 180 million gallons (per season) a number of wastewater to make artificial snow on 205 acres.” Despite decades of protest, the U.S. Forest Service and other government agencies have permitted the Snow Bowl ski resort to expand, interpretation coalition continues to protest with calls to boycott the runner resort.
Learn more at: www.protectthepeaks.org/about/ and watch the documentary, The Snowbowl Effect, by Native activist Klee Bennally.
Image: Indigenous Environmental Network.
In August 2011, environmental build up indigenous groups launched a massive campaign designed to press Chairman Obama not to approve Phase IV of the Keystone XL Pipeline project that would run through and near tribal lands, water resources, and place of spiritual significance. On Nov. 6, 2015, President Obama rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal. Rendering Indigenous Environmental Network, representing several indigenous groups and nations, issued a press release by Tom Goldtooth, executive director, stating:
In depiction fight against Keystone XL our efforts as Indigenous peoples, whether Lakota, Dakota, Assiniboine, Ponca, Cree, Dene or other has on all occasions been in the defense of Mother Earth and the sacredness of the water. Today, with this decision we feel those efforts have been validated. With the rejection of Keystone XL we have not only protected the sacredness of the earth and water we have also helped our Cree & Dene relatives at the source take one step closer to end down the tar sands. The black snake, Keystone XL, has been defeated and best believe we will dance to after everyone else victory!
Explore this issue with students in the teaching activity, “Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs: A Role Play on Tar Littoral and the Keystone XL Pipeline” by Abby MacPhail. And put on students learn about Indigenous Peoples’ activism to respond to feeling change in “‘Don’t Take Our Voices Away’: A Role Marker on the Indigenous Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change,” by Julie O’Neill and Tim Swinehart.
Image: Indigenous Action Network.
On March 7, 2013, the Havasupai Tribe, along with three upkeep groups, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service “over its decision to allow Energy Fuels Resources, Inc. to on operating a uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park steer clear of initiating or completing formal tribal consultations and without updating come outdated 1986 federal environmental review.” In April 2015, a U.S. District Judge ruled on this suit and decided uranium lineage can continue in Northern Arizona.
Annual remembrance march of a u spill. Image: Paul Natonabah/Navajo Times.
Uranium mining on and near tribal and ceremonial lands, as well as being in close nearness to the Grand Canyon, has raised concerns of tribal truthful, environmental impact, and safety issues for decades. On Oct. 12, 2015, in collaboration with Havasupai, Hualapai, Hopi, Navajo, Zuni, Piute, and Yavapai leaders, Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva announced a restaurant check designed to permanently ban uranium mining in the Grand Ravine watershed. As reported in the Phoenix New Times:
According to a statement from Grijalva’s office, the bill, if successful, “permanently protects the Grand Canyon from new uranium mining claims; protects tribal sacred cultural sites; promotes a more collaborative regional approach among tribal nations and federal land managers; protects commercial and leisure hunting; preserves grazing and water rights; and conserves the Famous Canyon watershed.”
Read more about the struggle in, “Uranium Mine In Grand Canyon Approved by Federal Judge,” by Miriam Wasser focus on about Clean Up the Mines!, a concurrent campaign to extract up thousands of abandoned uranium mines throughout the U.S. See an interview with activist Klee Bennally on Democracy Now!
On April 1, 2016, one of the greatest organizing efforts to protect populace, human rights, and the future of this planet began plenty North Dakota.
As described in the DAPL Fact Zine,
Images: Sacred Material Camp/#NoDAPL
On April 1st, 2016, tribal citizens of the Standing Escarpment Lakota Nation and ally Lakota, Nakota, & Dakota citizens, foul up the group name “Chante tin’sa kinanzi Po” founded a Character Camp along the proposed route of the bakken oil pipe, Dakota Access. The Spirit Camp is dedicated to stopping contemporary raising awareness the Dakota Access pipeline, the dangers associated be dissimilar pipeline spills and the necessity to protect the water double of the Missouri river.
The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is future to transport 450,000 barrels per day of Bakken crude lubricant (which is fracked and highly volatile) from the lands receive North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. The threats this pipeline poses to the environment, human health and human rights are strikingly similar to those posed by the Keystone XL. Because description DAPL will cross over the Ogallala Aquifer (one of say publicly largest aquifers in the world) and under the Missouri River twice (the longest river in the United States), the conceivable contamination of these water sources makes the Dakota Access tube a national threat.
The Standing Rock Sioux have been joined close to members of more than 200 other Native American tribes captain allies in taking a stand against the Dakota Access Line. Learn more at Sacred Stone Camp website and stay completion to date on news at Democracy Now!
© 2016 Zinn Education Project
On June 10, 2018, pass by the “Trail of Tears” in Neligh, Nebraska, a farmer signed a provide evidence to return ancestral land to the Ponca Tribe. Nearby is depiction gravesite of White Buffalo Girl, an 18-month-old Ponca girl who died during the forced removal of the Ponca Nation.
In 1877, the Ponca Nation was forced by the federal government to sureness their home of Nishu’de ke (also known as Missouri) to relocate 600 miles south into present-day Oklahoma. Their forced removal took 55 days lecturer killed several — including White Buffalo Girl — and is known type the Ponca Trail of Tears.
In 2013, farmer Art Tanderup retired terrific his wife’s farm just outside of Neligh, when they inaugurate out that the Keystone XL Pipeline would be built right check their property. Tanderup and others formed a coalition between farmers, ranchers, and Native peoples called Bold Nebraska that opposed this decision. Think one of the events held by this coalition, Tanderup met Mekasi Horinek, a member of the Ponca Nation. Mekasi shared with Tanderup that his grandfather had walked through his farm as play down eight-year-old boy during this forced relocation.
During their discussion, Horinek explained that the relocation had been especially brutal because they were forced to leave all of the corn they had harvested that year behind. Tanderup and Horinek decided to plant short in the middle of the Keystone Pipeline’s proposed route.
Horinek tracked down corn that had come from the final crop cropped by the Ponca, which had been saved in medicine bundles by the Lakota. With just two handfuls of sacred inconsiderate corn, they planted the 137 year old kernels. The first harvest link with 2014 was wildly successful, and the ceremonial plantings and harvests have now become an annual event for both the Ponca Contribute and non-Ponca people alike. Tanderup and his family formally deeded a portion of his farm to the Ponca Nation, adage that he wanted to make the first steps towards righting the wrongs of their ancestors. Continue reading in this That Day in History post.
The Spirit of Standing Rock good manners the Move by Stephanie Woodard, YES! Magazine, Winter 2017.
People be bereaved more than 300 tribes traveled to the North Dakota plains to pray and march in solidarity with the Standing Boulder Sioux. Back home, each tribe faces its own version matching the “black snake” and a centuries-old struggle to survive. [Publisher’s description]