Mendota Pow Wow 2009 @ Mendota Minnesota

Rhoda’s movie was filmed in many locations in the Twin Cities. The Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community was one of those places.  Our own Jim Anderson was one of the actors, with Mitch Walking Elk, Philip Little Thunder,  and other familiar faces. I watched many of the scenes and enjoyed it very much.

Congratulations to all of you who made the movie possible.

A very special congratulations to Rhonda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNIE3NnpsHY .

Click here for a copy of the award.

Leonard Peltier to get first full parole hearing in 15 years

MORE ARTICLES ABOUT PELTIER

A hearing is set for this coming Tuesday in Lewisburg, Pa., where Peltier is incarcerated in a federal prison, according to this story.

Peltier is serving two life sentences for the deaths of two FBI agents during a 1975 standoff on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He has claimed the FBI framed him, which the agency denies. His case has become a cause celebre among activists and celebrities.

A 1992 documentary film, “Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story,” was produced and narrated by Robert Redford. Author Peter Matthiessen’s book, “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,” which came out that same year, also details the events surrounding Peltier’s case.

Imprisoned Native American Activist Leonard Peltier Parole Hearing
RIGHT NOW, today, Tuesday 28th, 2009!

Video tribute to Leonard Peltier Original music by Buggin Malone

Actor Peter Coyote, good friend of Peltier, urges people to write their congressional representatives on behalf of Leonard Peltier’s release.

As of this year, my good friend, Native American leader Leonard Peltier, has been imprisoned for 29 years for a murder that even the government has no idea if he committed or not. The Appeals Court judge that sentenced him wrote a letter to President Clinton asking for clemency, and informing the President that the case had many errors in it, but that his hands had been tied. Furthermore, he held the FBI equally culpable for the events that started a massive fire-fight on the Sioux reservation that resulted in the deaths of two FBI agents.

Leonard has been in prison longer than many people convicted of murder. He has been eligible for parole for many years and every appeal has been denied. Both his parents have died while he was incarcerated and he has survived two attempts on his life; had his jaw wired shut after botched surgery and is now suffering from old age. During the 1996 Democratic Convention I asked a Deputy in the Justice Department about Leonard and he told me, "When you first spoke to me, I thought you were crazy. I’m embarrassed to say that everything you told me was the truth. All I can say is that there are some very powerful people in Washington that do not want to see him leave prison alive."

Here are the facts of the case.

In 1973 the highest per capita murder rate in the country was the Sioux reservation at Pine Ridge. The head of Oglalla Sioux police force, a virtual dictator named Dick Wilson and his GOON Squad (Guardians of the Oglalla Nation) were systematically picking off everyone working for electoral reform on the reservation and traditional elders—more than 60 in that year alone. The situation got so bad, that the tribe’s elder women called the American Indian Movement (AIM) for help, and they arrived and set up an encampment, with women and children, schools and kitchens.

In this tense and murderous climate, on June 26, 1975, two FBI agents in unmarked cars followed a pick-up truck onto the Jumping Bull ranch supposedly to serve a warrant on a young boy who had stolen some cowboy boots. It also happened to be the same day that GOON Squad chief Dick Wilson was in Washington, illegally signing away the tribe’s uranium rights to multinational mining corporations. The families immediately became alarmed and feared an attack. Shots were heard and a shoot-out erupted. Tribal police had been readied as back-up outside the ranch, but when they heard the return fire, they abandoned the FBI men who were wounded, then eventually executed at close range. Everyone who was there insists that Leonard was minding the children and not even involved in the gun-fight. When they searched the bodies and found the Federal ID the Native leaders dispersed far and wide, correctly anticipating that the reservation would be over-run ‘y Federal forces. It was, and they shot it to pieces, instituting a week long reign of terror where elders were harassed and beaten, houses burned and shot up, and the native population terrorized.

Leonard was finally captured in Canada and brought to trial where he and his cohorts were freed by an all-white jury. The FBI was enraged and assembled a new case by fabricating evidence, suborning witnesses, breaking the chains of evidence, having witnesses perjure themselves—all errors cited by the Appeals judge who later petitioned on Leonard’s behalf, but despite numerous errors, Leonard was sentenced to life in prison.

His case was masterfully explained by author Peter Mathiessen in his book, The Spirit of Crazy Horse which was kept off bookstore and library shelves for eight years due to a suit brought by two FBI men who did not like the way they were portrayed. More than 16 million people around the world have signed petitions demanding his release. Amnesty International, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy

Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rev. Jesse Jackson, among many others, have called Leonard a political prisoner who should be immediately released. Even the government finally admitted they had no idea of who had killed the agents. Native warrior has confessed to the crime, but refuses to turn himself in saying it was an act of war.

29 years later Leonard languishes in prison, a political prisoner, tarnishing the reputation of the legal system of our country; offering cheap propaganda to our enemies, and a reminder of the deep injustice any country is capable of committing when they abandon the rule of law, to seek a predetermined outcome. I have been Leonard’s friend since before he went to prison. I have never abandoned efforts to see him freed and I am asking anyone who hears or reads these remarks to learn something about the case by reading Peter Mathiessen’s book or going to www.freeleonard.org If you do, you will certainly want to do something. You might begin with a call or hand-written letter to your congress-person. Thank you.

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This story from http://www.NewsForNatives.com

Love him or hate him, Think he should remain in custody or think he never should have been, Please leave your comments below:

www.youtube.com/user/chrisspottedeagle

A while back, New York’s Fifth Avenue Easter Parade was the unlikely setting for a gentle, ironic probing of a decidedly ungentle fact: even through white Americans no longer think of themselves as conquistadores when they view Indian people, white ignorance and disregard of Indian reality remains massive.

Do Indians Shave? is a series of brief, on-the-street interviews with costumed parade-goers, conducted as the crowds swirl around the subject and the crew.  The mood on the street is festive.  The interviewer keeps the conversation brief and low-key: he simply asks each subject a few basic questions about Indian people, questions that sound like they belong in a grade-school primer.  Out tumbles a potpourri of inane myths, gross inaccuracies, and inadvertent slander of Indian people.  These smiling, pleasant people are, unfortunately, perpetuating the lies that have been used to justify genocide, and the mindless indifference, or at best, mild and inactive concern, that makes possible the continuing oppression of Indian people.  And it’s all such good fun on a sunny Easter Day.

Question:  Is the gross ignornace about Indigenous peoples still prevalent?

http://amin.umn.edu/naisa2009/#committee

Nov 29th, 2008 Posted in GROUPS & ORGANIZATIONS | Edit | no comment »

May 21-23, 2009 the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota will host the first meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). This is the third of three meetings that culminated in the creation of a new professional organization for scholars who work in American Indian/Native American/First Nations/Aboriginal/Indigenous Studies. The Native American Studies program at the University of Oklahoma, Norman hosted the first meeting in May of 2007, and the Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia hosted the second meeting in April of 2008.

The American Indian Studies Department at the U of M is excited to host the third meeting. 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the department’s founding – the oldest such program in the country with departmental status. Founded amidst the civil rights struggles of the sixties and early seventies, the department has long been committed to the development of theories and methodologies that reflect American Indian perspectives and it embraces ways of knowing that stand in contrast to the linear analytic Euro-American studies typically found in colleges and universities. The department’s base of formally educated and institutionally trained academicians is being supplemented increasingly by community resource people, including traditional leaders, elders and American Indian artists, writers, film makers, and musicians. Incorporation of such contributors into the teaching program acknowledges unique cultural wisdom and skills that are not typically available in formal, western institutions, but that are nonetheless essential to an understanding of American Indian cultures.

A local host committee of faculty and staff members will arrange accommodations, meeting space, and a set of events that will give conference participants an opportunity to experience the beautiful Twin Cities and U of M campus.

Contact members of the Acting Council if you have questions or concerns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4-TYwFS-P0&feature=related

What a horrible time in those  native’s past.

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2 years ago 18,118 views WarriorPanther

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPixWM6qFGQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJazWy0HHc4&NR=1

Video: Dakota memorial march

Augsburg’s Indigenous Student Association (AISA) is hosting The Bluedog band and Red Ponie Band THIS Friday, November 14 at Augsburg College (2211 Riverside Ave, Mpls) in the Sateren Auditorium in the Music Hall.  Opening set will be by the Red Ponie Band at 6:30 PM and Bluedog Band around 7:30.    See attached poster.  Refreshments will be served.  Please join us!

Jennifer Simon
American Indian Student Services
Augsburg College
2211 Riverside Avenue
Campus Box #307
Minneapolis, MN 55454
(612) 330-1144
Fax (612) 330-1695
simonj@augsburg.edu

Comedy: Winona LaDuke on The Colbert Report

Sacred Sites Run :. photos

YouTube – Ben Yahola and Wade

Fernandez

YouTube – Sacred Sites Run 2006

highlights

Hello,

I just wanted to take a minute of your time to introduce one my favorite new artist. Her name is Crystal Shawanda and she is truly an amazing talent! 

Crystal pours her heart & soul into her music, because it is her lifeline.  A Native American, Crystal grew up on the Wikwemikong Indian Reserve in Ontario , Canada .  Her last name, “Shawanda” literally translates to the album title, “Dawn of a New Day” – and a new day is what music has given Crystal .   CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE

Read the rest of this entry »

To view Winona LaDuke on Stephen Colbert yesterday, 6/12

http://download.yousendit.com/9B723265545FB642

Minnesota at its Sesquicentennial
Exceptional People in an Exceptional Place

May is American Indian Month in Minnesota

http://www.mn150years.org/americanindianmonth.html