If you’ve been following our work on Standing Rock for the past year, you won’t be surprised to hear that the white-dominated city council in my hometown of McLaughlin, South Dakota is displaying its usual biased treatment of Native residents. First they cut power to homes during the early, cold months of COVID-19. Then they blocked my friend, Hoksila White Mountain, from running for mayor of the Standing Rock’s reservation’s second largest town. Now, they’ve reneged on the mayor’s promise to appoint Hoksila to city council. Unacceptable!

Please help us reverse this ugly, local pattern of Native subjugation. Sign our petition to the McLaughlin City Council today and let them know you stand behind our refusal to accept this broken promise.

Our friend, Hoksila White Mountain, should be on the McLaughlin City Council.

On Monday, we’ll attend the council meeting and, in a show of force by the Native people of this community, deliver our message directly to our local lawmakers. I’m also leading a team of five people going door to door collecting signatures around town, and I’m happy to report that our lead counsel, Chase Iron Eyes, will be there on Monday to represent Hoksila.

As an additional pressure point, we’re in dialogue with the Campaign Legal Center in D.C. (the law firm that successfully joined the Native American Rights Fund in suing North Dakota in 2018 over its voter suppression law) about this matter. I’m confident the power of our combined voices can achieve the change we need. 

We have leverage. McLaughlin’s mayor is on record, multiple times, saying Hoksila will fill the vacant seat in his own ward. The mayor has no valid reason to back off from this public promise — only fear and/or racism. Hoksila would be just the second Native person on the city council in Standing Rock’s second largest town, which was once a KKK stronghold. (My friends and I call it the “Deep North”.)

But I grew up on this land, and I know the power it — and its original inhabitants — have. This November, we at Standing Rock helped generate the largest electoral turnout in U.S. history, and the Native vote had an undeniable impact. So we refuse to stand down and accept election irregularities like this at Standing Rock. Petition the City of McLaughlin, and let them know you stand with us in demanding Hoksila’s appointment to council. It’s past time for Native representation and justice in our homelands. 

Wopila tanka — your action empowers our people!

Honorata Defender
Standing Rock Organizer
Lakota People’s Law Project

‘Strong hearts to the front!’: Indigenous water protectors take direct action against Minnesota tar sands pipeline

‘Strong hearts to the front!’: Indigenous water protectors take direct action against Minnesota tar sands pipeline

“Clean water and unpolluted land capable of providing sustenance is essential to our survival… [and] Line 3 poses an existential threat to our well-being.” By Brett Wilkins – December 7, 2020 46 SOURCECommon DreamsShare on FacebookTweet on Twitter

Indigenous-led water protectors on Friday engaged in multiple direct actions against Enbridge’s highly controversial Line 3 tar sands pipeline in Minnesota, on the same day that state regulators denied a request from two tribes to stop the Canadian company from proceeding with the project.

Water protectors blocked pipeline traffic and climbed and occupied trees as part of Friday’s actions. Urging other Indigenous peoples and allies to “take a stand,” the Anishinaabe activists at one of the protests told other Native Americans that “your ancestors are here too.”

“Take a moment to speak to her, our Mother Earth is crying out for the warriors to rise again,” they said. “Strong hearts to the front!”

In a statement, Line 3 Media Collective said that the pipeline “violates the treaty rights of Anishinaabe peoples by endangering critical natural resources in the 1854, 1855, and 1867 treaty areas, where the Ojibwe have the right to hunt, fish, gather medicinal plants, harvest wild rice, and preserve sacred sites.” https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=NationofChange&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1334951555070562313&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationofchange.org%2F2020%2F12%2F07%2Fstrong-hearts-to-the-front-indigenous-water-protectors-take-direct-action-against-minnesota-tar-sands-pipeline%2F&siteScreenName=NationofChange&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=NationofChange&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1334944778069356552&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationofchange.org%2F2020%2F12%2F07%2Fstrong-hearts-to-the-front-indigenous-water-protectors-take-direct-action-against-minnesota-tar-sands-pipeline%2F&siteScreenName=NationofChange&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=NationofChange&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1334878831476428806&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationofchange.org%2F2020%2F12%2F07%2Fstrong-hearts-to-the-front-indigenous-water-protectors-take-direct-action-against-minnesota-tar-sands-pipeline%2F&siteScreenName=NationofChange&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

“The state of Minnesota does not have the consent of many tribes that will be impacted by construction and spills,” the group added. “Last week, the Red Lake Band of Chippewa and the White Earth Band petitioned the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to pause its approval of Line 3 construction while challenges to the permits are considered by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.”

On Friday, the MPUC voted 4-1 to reject the tribes’ request. According to the Washington Post, the commissioners said that further delays would hurt workers who had traveled to northern Minnesota. They also cited Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s designation of the project as “critical” during the coronavirus pandemic.  https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=NationofChange&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-5&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1334869896757469194&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationofchange.org%2F2020%2F12%2F07%2Fstrong-hearts-to-the-front-indigenous-water-protectors-take-direct-action-against-minnesota-tar-sands-pipeline%2F&siteScreenName=NationofChange&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

On Thursday, the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (MCT) appealed directly to Walz:

Indian people have lived along the lakes, rivers, and streams of northern Minnesota since time immemorial. The people of the MCT have flourished in the area for centuries due to the careful conservation of our resources. Clean water and unpolluted land capable of providing sustenance is essential to our survival… [and] Line 3 poses an existential threat to our well-being. 

The vote and the water protectors’ latest act of resistance come just two days after construction began on the $2.9 billion, 1,100-mile extension. 

According to Indigenous-led environmental group Honor the Earth, the pipeline will have the daily capacity to transport 760,000 barrels of tar sands oil—known as the world’s dirtiest fuel—from Alberta, Canada to a port in Superior, Wisconsin. Stop Line 3 says the pipeline will run “through untouched wetlands and the treaty territory of Anishinaabe peoples.”

“We have the right to practice our treaty rights,” stressed Gitchigumi Scout member Taysha Martineau, one of the Indigenous leaders at the Friday action. “We ask you to bear witness and protect our right to do so.”