Page 1
Black & Pink September 2016 Newsletter 3 Things You Need to Know about Indigenous Efforts Against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) By Taté Walker, Huffington Post, September 6th 2016
More than 90 Indigenous nations and non-Native accomplices have gathered in camps near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to protect lands, waters, and people from a crude oil pipeline. The number of supporters has swelled to up to 4,000 at points in the last few weeks, according to on-the-ground estimates, though the numbers ebb and flow. Thousands more supporters across the US, like myself, have been unable to lend physical support, though we have provided much-needed money, supplies, emotional solidarity, and legal support from afar. I can’t adequately put into words how historic an Indigenous gathering like this is; something similar happened in 1876, when many Native nations under Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and other great leaders came together and defeated Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Calvary at the Battle of the Greasy Grass (aka Little Bighorn). That it’s happening again, now, in this time, is momentous. It’s also a stark reminder of how little has changed for Native nations and our relationship with the US government. In 1876 we were fighting to protect our sacred lands, specifically Ȟe Sápa, the Black Hills in South Dakota, where Custer led an illegal expedition and found gold, despite the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) stating that land belonged to the Očéti Šakówiŋ (the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota people commonly referred to as the Sioux). Continued on Page 2