WEBVTT - #527 The Wrongful Conviction of Leonard Peltier - Part 1 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:06.720 Before and after seventeen seventy six, European colonizers traveled to 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:12.840 the Americas, slowly eroding indigenous land as they went. When 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.160 uranium was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota, 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.439 the US government sought to take land from the Oglala 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:24.159 Sioux and deliver it to private enterprise. Thus began a 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.759 reign of terror in nineteen seventy two that led to 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.920 over sixty unsolved murders on the Pine Ridge Reservation and 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.760 came to a climax in a nineteen seventy five firefight 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.879 that left one Native man and two federal agent instead. 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:44.199 Now by FBI estimates, forty two Native people were engaged 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.360 in the firefight with swatims from all around the country 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.960 that had been lying in wait, but the chaos and 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:53.640 crossfire made it very difficult to pinpoint who was responsible 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.160 for the deaths. Two Native men were tried and acquitted 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.800 on the grounds of self defense, so and evidence changed 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.760 when they then tried one of the leaders of the 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:09.679 American Indian Movement, Leonard Peltier, sending him away for two 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:20.760 consecutive life sentences. This is wrongful conviction. You're listening to 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.560 wrongful conviction. You can listen to this and all the 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.759 Lava for Good podcasts one week early n AD free 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.919 by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.520 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I mean, I have a 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:43.440 lot of heroes, and I've had the chance to meet 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.360 and interview many of them, but none greater than the 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.040 man that we're interviewing today. He's very humble, so he 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.600 probably hates the sound of that, but I got to 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:55.520 say it like it is. Leonard Peltier is an American 0:01:55.840 --> 0:02:01.520 legend of civil rights who survived countless assassination attend dodged hundreds, 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.960 if not thousands, of bullets, escaped from federal prisons, from 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.080 manhunts from the country. I mean, I feel like Johnny 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.480 Depp needs to play you, Leonard in a movie someday. 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:12.240 I hope he will. 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.480 Johnny and I are okay perfect. 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:18.440 Then we're going to produce this movie. And I'm joined 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:22.760 today by Ben Bolin, one of my favorite podcasters, who's 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.600 going to be co hosting this episode and this season 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:26.440 of Wrongful Conviction. 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:28.840 Yes, sir, on stuff they don't want you to do. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.799 My colleagues and I intensely studied aim the American Indian 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:39.080 Movement your story as well. We are overjoyed to be 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:44.400 speaking with you today when you have emerged from what 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:49.320 I would call a gross miscarriage of American justice. 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:51.440 And later on we're going to be joined by one 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:55.000 of Leonard's co defendants, Darryl Dino Butler, who was acquitted 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.240 in a separate trial. We will also speak with a 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:02.119 member of Leonard's original defense, Bruce Allison, who has remained 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.960 steadfast two and four Leonard for the last fifty years, 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:09.919 as well as legal legend Ron Kobe and Holly maccaro, 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:14.480 a tribal advocate who was instrumental in winning Leonard's clemency, 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:19.760 but before Leonard's ronful incarceration, prosecution, or even his political activism. 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.919 Leonard or Tate Wikowa was born in nineteen forty four 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:25.440 in North Dakota. 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.639 My English name is Leonard Peltier. I'm a nation Abbi 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.440 were called Chipwa and many different places, and were called 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.920 Sue's also Lakota in a number of different places, but 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.880 those are our real names. I'm eighty years old. I've 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.520 just got out of prison after spending forty nine point 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.560 juniors in federal prisons across the country. I have been 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.720 an activist since I was nine years old when I 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.920 was first taken from my home and forcibly put into 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.680 a boarding school. How it happened was my grandmother and 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.400 grand father basically adopted us and was raising myself and 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.840 my sister Betty, and my cousin Pauline. And then Grandpa, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.320 who was a provider for the family, died in fifty two. 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:18.440 Grandma was by herself, so she thought, well, I got 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.000 to have some help to feed these kids. So she 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:24.559 went to the BIA agency and asked for help. 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.680 And BIA is the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.840 Yes, and they found an excuse to take us and 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.080 put us in a boarding school in Watson, North Dakota, 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.600 and they were trying to beat the Native language and 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.680 religion and culture out of us. 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.919 Today, the BIA is part of the Federal Department of 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:50.400 the Interior and now manages about fifty six million acres 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.200 of land held in trust with Native nations, and they 0:04:54.400 --> 0:05:01.279 implement federal laws and policy regarding policing, resources, agricul infrastructure, 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:06.240 economic issues. But back in the fifties, the federal government 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:10.520 was on a mission to assimilate Native people into Anglo 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.920 American culture. It's a mission that began even before the 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:20.000 eighteen eighty three Code of Indian Offenses. That code outlawed 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:25.239 various Indigenous religious practices for the comfort of their new 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.600 European neighbors, we could call them. And so, even in 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.760 the aftermath of World War Two, in which so many 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:40.160 Native men served, fought, and died, for Leonard and his siblings, 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.680 getting food assistants meant being ripped away from their families, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.800 robbed of their language and religion, in a boarding school 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.719 system where abuse ran rampant. 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.119 I myself almost died when I was ten years old 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.840 escaping from there. But I wasn't the only child, and 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.880 this was not the only school. I was just one 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:06.200 of thousands of kids that were facing this type of brutality. 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:11.240 That's when my political activism started. When I got there, 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.200 there was already a group of older kids that had 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:18.640 started a group called Resistors, and we would go behind 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.359 the gymnasm and sing our songs and talk native to 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.240 each other and our prayers and stuff like this. I 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.239 was there from nineteen fifty three to nineteen fifty six. 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.719 I happened to go in there at a time when 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.000 I hit it. Lucky the people were lobbying, and the 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:41.160 soldiers were lobbying the President of the United States Eisenhower, 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.640 and so Eisenhower put out a presidential order no more 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.120 maltreatment of the Indian kids and the schools, because there 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:54.400 was so many kids that were literally becoming lost. They 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:56.719 call them and they don't know what happened to them. 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.599 You may have seen the news articles in the last 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.160 decade or so about the discovery of mass graves near 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:10.120 old Native boarding schools. So while Eisenhower's intervention was a 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:14.480 welcome public change in tone in the nineteen fifties, we 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:18.880 have to remember a nefarious agenda was still afoot. It's 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.320 an agenda that began even before the first iteration of 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.600 the BIA, way back when it was called the Committee 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:31.120 on Indian Affairs under Ben Franklin. This committee oversaw trade 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:35.880 and treaty relations. The authority was transferred to the Secretary 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.280 of War in seventeen eighty nine, and this led to 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:44.320 a century of wars, treaties, broken treaties, and above all, 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.760 the slow erosion of indigenous land. 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.320 When they first got here, the first lands they took 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.800 with our agricultural land, all of the vegetables and stuff 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.520 you see on the table came from us. Our farmers 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:03.120 domesticated a while vegetable into a domesticated one, and we 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.280 had some of the best agricultural land in the world. 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.840 So they took us off of that and put us 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.880 on barren land that they didn't take we would ever 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.480 exist then, I mean, you can find writings where they 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.600 said this, they should not be able to live through 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.880 somebody's lands that they put us on. But we did 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:26.960 because we knew how to develop barn land into productive land. 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:32.120 But as more Europeans arrived, the transgressions continued, like the 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:36.400 Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty signed by then President 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.880 Andrew Jackson, which meant for the Natives who would not assimilate, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.520 they would be moved west of the Mississippi River into 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.200 what was at that time called Indian Territory. Yet in 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:53.079 the eighteen thirty four Worcester v. Georgia Supreme Court decision, 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.360 the court ruled in favor of previous treaties and the 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.360 sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:05.319 Jackson notoriously infamously remarked, let's see them enforce it, and 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.520 in one of the first times in American history, a 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.959 sitting President ignored the Supreme Court and began the deadly 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.800 trail of tears, marching the Cherokees from their rightful place 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.480 in Georgia to present day Oklahoma. 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.480 And over the following half century, many more wars were 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:27.920 fought and new treaties were signed, only spoiler to later 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:32.400 be broken again. Probably the most egregious land grab occurs 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.280 in eighteen eighty seven, when the US Congress passes the 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:41.359 DAWs Act under the guise of assimilation. This act divides 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:46.520 land that was collectively held by various Native nations into 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.160 what they called individual land allotments, like the ones settled 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:54.520 by their European counterparts, and then once settled. This leaves 0:09:54.760 --> 0:10:00.160 one hundred and thirty eight million surplus acres of Native nations. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.920 Land, which was then made available for purchase by non natives, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.760 and by nineteen thirty four, only forty eight million of 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:12.320 those acres remained, at which point the Indian Reorganization Act 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:17.000 sought to drastically change the relationship by ending assimilation mandates, 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.920 encouraging tribal self governance and constitutions, elections in corporation for 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.760 resource management, and that tribal land would be protected by 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.559 the federal government, and any federal lands that were unused 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.840 would be returned to native control. But of the ninety 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.200 out of one hundred and thirty eight million acres to 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:39.800 be returned by twenty ten, only about eight percent of 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:45.640 them had been restored. Unsurprisingly, it appears that economic interests 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:46.960 caused a change of course. 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.839 As time went by, they start to find out that 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.760 the Baron lands they put us on was rich in 0:10:53.880 --> 0:11:00.640 minerals uranium, uranium, gold, silver, I mean copper. They wanted 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.360 this land for themselves, so they started again a system 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.920 of termination for us. In nineteen fifty six, they were 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:12.000 starting to write American Termination Act, which was supposed to 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.360 be completed by nineteen eighty five, and that was to 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.480 terminate all Indian reservations in this country. They were going 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.400 to supposedly buy our lands. But the first reservation to 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.840 be terminated was the Monominee of Wisconsin. Then they came 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.480 here to the Turtle Mountain, chip Or Cree Nation and 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.199 told us that we had to leave, we had to relocate. 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.360 But my father that his generation fought back. I was 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.000 only thirteen years old and I was able to participate. 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.920 We fought back here and literally drove them away. From 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:49.520 terminating this nation. And it wasn't just Turtle Mountains, it 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.680 was Pine Ridge. All of us was in that danger. 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:57.880 And part of that termination policy was the Indian Relocation Program, 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:02.880 through which the BA promised economic opportunity in urban areas, 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:08.640 offering vocational training and relocation assistance. Yet the Native people 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.319 who were willing to believe in this promise often found 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:19.560 nothing but low wage opportunities, racial discrimination, poverty, homelessness. Yet Leonard, 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:23.240 at this point is still young. It's nineteen fifty eight. 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.600 After being sure that there were no reports of abuse, 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.640 he enrolls in a boarding school in Land Crew, South Dakota. 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.480 Upon arrival, he's called to a meeting by other Native teens. 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.160 So this guy comes over, I think he was sophomore, 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:40.880 and he said, come down to the rec room. We're 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:42.720 going to talk to all of you guys. So we 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.200 go down there and this guy comes I take he 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.520 was a senior, and he said, there is a group 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.760 of white boys driving around the city Flinger of South Dakota, 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.360 and they're picking up these young Indian girls by force, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.480 taking them out in the country. They're beating them up, 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.200 they're raping them, and they're leaving them out there to die. 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.800 Your job is to escort them from the boarding school 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.640 grounds to the movies, and there was a soda shop 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.360 right next door to it. Your job is to protect him. 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:17.520 And I know, I was, Yeah, we'll be there, goddamn rights, 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:18.240 we'll be there. 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:22.839 But why did these teenagers feel responsible for public safety? Well, 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.680 according to the Major Crimes Act of eighteen eighty five, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.040 the tribal police only had jurisdiction over nonviolent crimes committed 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:34.360 by Native people, while federal authorities had jurisdiction over all 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.480 violent crimes, no matter who committed them, So federal authorities 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.600 were typically approached after the fact by Native crime victims, 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.480 as they were. In reference to a South Dakota teenager 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.000 named Bill Janklow. 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:52.880 Bill Janquell, his family was a very rich racture and 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.000 this one girl gets beat up. He raped her and everything, 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.160 and they thought she was knocked out, and she got 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.920 Bill Jenkuill license plate number, and that's how they caught him. 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.760 He pled guilty. He was given a choice of either 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.360 going to a farm school till he was twenty one 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.320 or going into the military for two years. So he 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.400 goes to the military, serves two years, it comes out 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.560 and he goes to college on a GI bill and 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:23.440 he gets a lawyer's degree. So he comes back to 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.800 the South Dakota area and somehow he's the leader part 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.760 of the agency that handles all Rosebud funding from Washington. 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.640 He's married, now got two kids, and he starts doing 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:36.120 it again. 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.920 In January nineteen sixty seven, when Janklow was the director 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:45.720 of the Rosebudsoe Legal Services Program, he allegedly raped a 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.400 young woman whom he employed as a babysitter. Her name 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:51.280 Jensita Eagle Deer. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.320 The head of the BI Police Department was telling us 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:58.760 he takes Bill Janquell to jail, he makes a call 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:01.880 and the FBI comes in said, you've got no jurisdiction. 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.240 You've got to let him out. That's the way it 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:08.440 was back. So Bill Jenkle was never charged for raping 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.640 Genese to Eagle there or any of those other young 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.560 girls they were children. He never was charged for that. 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:20.000 He starts running for office for the Attorney General's office. 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.360 And Jancy the Eagle Deer's allegations resurface. 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.760 So we were demonstrating raising hell and talking about we 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.000 want this son of a bitch in jail or some 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.360 god damn thing. He's raped numerous of our children. We 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.120 were pissed. We couldn't get nobody and listened to us. 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.120 So we become an active enemy of Bill Jenkles and 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.920 he becomes the Attorney General of South Dakota. God and 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.800 the attorney general himself was outraged. He said, I don't 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.760 believe this. You have kicked me out of office and 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:57.480 elected a admitted rapist child molest her. 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.560 Soon after that election, Jencita Eagle Deer is killed in 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:07.160 a hit and run accident, and Bill Jinklow went on 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:11.000 to be the twenty seventh and then thirtieth governor of 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:15.240 South Dakota before a stint in Congress that gets cut 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.760 short when Jinkler runs through a stop sign at about 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.760 sixty five miles per hour and kills a motorcyclist. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:25.840 He hits him on his motorcycle and kills him, and 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.840 his father, who was happy to be a successful rancher, himself, said, 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.160 this guy ain't gonna get away with this, not this time. Well, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.200 he got found guilty in a trial, but he was 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.400 sentenced to weekend in prison. So what they were having 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.840 him do is coming in the morning Saturday morning and 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.320 Sunday night, he would sign out to go back to 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:47.280 his job. 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:51.160 I don't want to sound cynical, but it's almost like 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:57.680 the white, wealthy and well connected experience a completely different 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.320 version of the legal system. Is that to an extreme, 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.920 and so the righteous commitment to justice that drove their 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.479 opposition to not only the protection of Janklow but also 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:09.960 his elevated status. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:10.240 Well. 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.920 That driving force continued to guide Leonard when he moved 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.480 to Seattle, Washington in nineteen sixty five. 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.160 My uncle Toby he'd probably get me a job up there, 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.280 so I did. I went up there. Later on I 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.280 met this state of he was older than me. It's 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.879 like a father to me. Howard Miller, him and I 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:31.359 got to talking about opening a auto shop. We did. 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:33.919 And I was staying with Howard and his wife and 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.600 come home for supper and I'm watching there was a 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.639 demonstration going on about the fishing and hunting, the struggles 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.240 that was going on since the forties or whatever. Way 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.680 back there. In nineteen fifty five, Marlon Branda got involved 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.760 and even got arrested, and it just kept escalating, and 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.359 they were out there tear gashing and beaten out the people, 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.040 and they had this one young lady. He had about 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.560 a five six year old son. They had ripped her 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.880 blouse and everything, which was a common practice they did 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.119 to the women. And there was beaten on her. And 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.920 this little boy come running up there and they said, 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:14.040 don't hit her, and he started beating him. So I 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.720 told Howe, I said, you can have everything. I'm going 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:18.359 on with them. 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:32.040 I'm gonna go fight with them. 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:36.280 I started getting involved, and I started joining different organizations, 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.879 and one of the ones was the Alcatraz occupation. 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:46.280 According to several treaties and the Indian Reorganization Act of 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:50.320 nineteen thirty four, surplus federal lands were supposed to be 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:55.320 returned to Native people. So with Alcatraz the penitentiary closed 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:59.000 in nineteen sixty three, it should have but was not 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:04.280 returned to its rightful tribe. From November of nineteen sixty 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.359 nine to July of nineteen seventy one, a collective of 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:14.200 Native organizations, including the American Indian Movement or AIM, occupied 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:19.440 this island Alcatraz under the following banner Indians of Old Tribes. 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.880 And this was not the only action taken for land reclamation. 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.159 We were doing the same thing on Fort Lawton that 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.399 land was being given to the city for one dollar, 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.359 and the city didn't want it. We've got too many 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.400 parks now, we can't pay for them, so let dominions 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.600 have it with the rich and people that were involved 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.919 in it had plans on building whatever. Would you give 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.919 it up. They finally gave us fifteen acres, but that 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.359 was nothing compared to I think it was fifteen hunderd 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.240 acres there. But those were the type of actions that 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.920 we were going and we got a confrontation with the 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.000 army there, and the military one of the things that 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.399 they did that still stays in my mind, and I 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.000 kind of believe that they would have never used them 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.840 on us. But one time they got off their buses 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.840 and they had flame drawers and so a lot of 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:15.120 people left to the back trail. But they never used them, 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.679 of course, but it was used as a tactic of 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:18.720 fear against us. 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:23.800 But the American Indian Movement wasn't deterred. In nineteen seventy two, 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:28.200 they organized a caravan to Washington that picked up more 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.320 numbers as it drove through other nativations along the way, 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.600 until they had about two thousand people descending on the 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:40.680 BIA building in a protest called the Trail of Broken Treaties. 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.480 We went to Washington to the Burevern and Affairs, that's 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.800 our White House, hoping we could get an audience with 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.919 somebody that could help us, because we were not getting 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.119 any help back there on the reservations and the termination 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.760 was being enforced upon us, and they're supposed to be 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.360 protecting us. Of course they weren't. They were fighting against 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.920 us to eliminate our control of our lands and depend 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.520 on the United States government for handouts. That's how they 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.080 controlled us. They forced us to submit to them through 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.639 these handouts, and people were tired about it. We wanted 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:20.080 to bring our treaties back up to them and make 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.439 them abide by their promises, and of course they weren't 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.760 doing that. So when we got there, we all ended 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.760 up in the parking lot, parked our cars and demonstrating 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.720 around the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. Like I said, 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.480 it's supposed to be our white house, and the superintendent, 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.280 Leo Bruce, was supposed to be our president, although he 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.800 was appointed but whatever party was in power at the time. 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:45.960 So we went in and asked them. We said, look, 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.679 we got all these people here, old people, some of 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:51.960 our headsmen and chiefs and stuff like this. And we 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.119 got children out there, us young people to sleep out 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.080 on the ground. We don't care about that, but we 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.120 want you to give these people lodging somehow. Lei Bruce UPSI, 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:02.840 I can't do that. I ain't got to fund it, 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.159 and got to well, what are you doing with the 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.600 millions and millions of dollars that goes into the budget 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.720 every year, Why can't you take care of our elders? 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.440 We know, lion, we knew that. And Russell Mean said 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.240 you're not going to let you do the Star elders, 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:20.760 and it escalated into occupation. 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:25.760 And during this six day occupation in November nineteen seventy two, 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:31.480 AIM leadership rifled through the BIA's documents. Bruce Ellison, who 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.439 supported AIM as an attorney throughout the standoff at Wounded Knees, 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.840 South Dakota in nineteen seventy three, as well as in 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.720 the aftermath of the shootout at Pine Ridge in nineteen 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:45.080 seventy five. Well Bruce told us about some of the 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.040 things that they discovered in the BIA building occupation in 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:52.560 nineteen seventy two, as well as what it meant specifically 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.520 for the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation there 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:57.560 in South Dakota. 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.480 When the BIA building was taken over by American Movement 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.280 in nineteen seventy two, there were a whole troughs of 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.120 documents that were taken and removed from that building. People 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:09.359 who have heard of this have generally heard of the 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:13.439 fact that it disclosed a four sterilization program for Native women. 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:17.919 Another part of that, though, was that this area was 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:22.840 given a priority for uranium mining. That was seventy two, right, 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:25.119 and then you have Wounded Knee seventy three, and then 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:28.800 you have this firefight in seventy five. You have resistance 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:32.320 basically all over the country, and now this new goal 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:35.920 of aim to stop destructive mining or anium mining. Most 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:38.480 people don't realize the front end of the nuclear fuel 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:43.639 cycle is an incredibly environmentally destructive process. It leaves the 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:48.440 earth poisoned for eons of time, as well as a 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:50.639 myriad about other things because not just uranium. It so 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:53.240 they having metals that get out, arsenic that gets out 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:56.000 during a lot of these processes. So I would say 0:23:56.040 --> 0:23:59.280 that the economics, they always say that what are war's about, 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:02.800 They're about lane and or resources. Well, this one was 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:05.480 kind of government had already seized the land, not officially, 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:09.760 not legally, it's still unseated territory, but they did want 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:12.520 to go after those resources. At that time, there were 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:16.639 some twenty uranium mining companies which were staking out claims 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:19.280 throughout the Black Hills, and this went on from mid 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:20.800 seventies into the late seventies. 0:24:21.040 --> 0:24:25.159 When American business interests need Uncle Sam's help justly or not, 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:28.840 and nations around the globe, well, they may or may 0:24:28.880 --> 0:24:32.680 not go as far as to medal in elections, and 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:35.680 it appears the Feds had a clear favorite in South 0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:39.400 Dakota tribal politics, in which there was a deep divide 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:44.159 between traditionalists who maintained Native culture and refused assimilation, and 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:48.000 those like the newly elected Oglala Siu Tribal chairman of 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:52.719 nineteen seventy two, Dick Wilson, a so called progressive native, 0:24:53.119 --> 0:24:56.959 the type that really took to assimilation and to the 0:24:57.000 --> 0:24:59.720 interests of the United States federal government. 0:25:00.240 --> 0:25:04.240 Well, you have a group of natives that we call sellouts. 0:25:04.400 --> 0:25:08.480