Indigenous People’s Resistance
The history of Indigenous people is full of acts of resistance. One such dramatic action was the seizure of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay by activists from the American Indian Movement. November marks the 50th anniversary of that event. More recently the blockade at Standing Rock in North Dakota galvanized Indigenous communities to defend their land, water, and sacred burial grounds. The Standing Rock resistance injected into public discourse such terms as water protectors and stewards of the land and an awareness that Native peoples have an expanded concept of kinship and family that includes Nature. Despite widespread opposition to the pipeline, Trump authorized its construction. La Lucha Sigue. The struggle for indigenous rights continues.
Recorded at the University of Colorado at Denver.
Speaker
Nick Estes
Nick Estes is a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is a professor in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is co-founder of The Red Nation, an Indigenous resistance organization. His articles appear in The Intercept, Jacobin, Indian Country Today, and High Country News. He is the author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and The Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, and he co-edited Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement.
Toni Miles –
This was a very excellent powerful hour; I wasn’t aware of most of what Mr. Estes was sharing. It opened my eyes and makes me want to study further. I intend to get his book and wake up and pay more attention. Thank you, sir. Keep moving forward.
Shane was my given name –
Motivated and ready to act