Editor’s Note: OLB invited writer, veteran and medic Jacob Thomas to reflect on his experience at Standing Rock in early December, 2016. He sent this manuscript en route from Tijuana, MX, where he is working to document deported veterans’ oral histories for the Library of Congress. For more information on this oral history project see the GoFundMe … Continue reading Listen More & Talk Less: A Veteran’s Reflection on Standing Rock
This has been a year of intense activism focused upon water and indigenous rights in general, and we at the Overpass Light Brigade have tried to use our visibility to give focus to these issues. Last January hit hard and cold and the freezing weather was a match for the frozen hearts of our state … Continue reading A Year of Water and Indigenous Struggle
Overpass Light Brigade invited Margaret Noodin, an Anishinaabe poet, to write a piece about the struggle at Standing Rock for this blog. This is what she has to say: This poem was written in the midst of the historic show of support for land, water and indigenous life and culture. We all need to raise our … Continue reading The Long Knives and the Seven Fires
By Barbara With, October 29, 2016 All photos by Barbara With, except “Boys On Horses,” by Joe Brusky Today I made my first visit to the Sacred Stone Camps, the now-famous water protector settlement in Standing Rock, North Dakota. I arrived at Standing Rock casino well past midnight and arose early the next day to get to … Continue reading Standing Rock Will Prevail
Memory is long in Indian Country and histories get obscured through the haze of stories untold or skewed in the telling. By the late 1800s, the nomadic Sioux had been relegated to 320 acre plots, their children sent to boarding schools for assimilation into Christendom, and the great buffalo herds all but extinguished. Their once … Continue reading Echoes of the Ghost Dance
Since our visit to Sacred Stone Camp, we have been highlighting news and pictures of the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance fight on our Facebook page and in this blog. People are obviously hungry for news about this movement, but we were surprised to see our “total reach,” a barometer of Facebook’s algorithmic dispersal of pages … Continue reading Sacred Stone and Peaceful Resistance
It was horsemanship day at the Red Warrior Camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, and we had set ourselves up in the minimal shade of a small break of willow trees. It was the only shade around, and people drifted in to watch the riding events, joining us away from the blistering sun. We started … Continue reading Drone To Be Wild