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<font size="1"><a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/treaty-defenders-block-road-leading-to-mount-rushmore-ctPNfZ1W0UiABOWreb-srA">https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/treaty-defenders-block-road-leading-to-mount-rushmore-ctPNfZ1W0UiABOWreb-srA</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Treaty defenders block road leading to Mount Rushmore</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">July 3, 2020<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-line-height4 gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><h4>Mary Annette Pember</h4><p><em><a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indian Country Today</a></em></p><p>More
than 100 treaty defenders and other protesters gathered on a highway
leading to Mount Rushmore on Friday ahead of President Donald Trump’s
speech at the monument.</p><p>The group blocked the road, holding
banners and chanting slogans such as “We can’t breathe” and proclaiming
treaty rights. They carried signs with messages such as, “End 500 years
of Genocide,” and “It’s a good day to do the right thing." </p><p>At one
point, Native women in ribbon skirts created a line across the highway,
behind them members of NDN Collective, a nonprofit Native advocacy
organization, parked white vans across the road and deflated the
tires. Protesters later removed the wheels and climbed on top of the
vans, shouting "Land back!" </p><p> <strong>(Related: <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/lakotas-to-donald-trump-you-are-not-welcome-here-DsW1nMF-VU2uksSJ6sqo3Q" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lakotas to Donald Trump: ‘You are not welcome here’</a>)</strong></p><p>The
gathering took place near a checkpoint at Highways 16/244 where ticket
holders for Trump’s South Dakota event were being screened. Some treaty
defenders got into heated exchanges with people driving to Mount
Rushmore.</p><div><p><img src="https://imageproxy.themaven.net/https%3A%2F%2Fimages.saymedia-content.com%2F.image%2FMTczNzEzODk3NzUxMDYyMTU1%2Froadblock5a.jpg" alt="Native groups and other protesters block a highway leading to Mount Rushmore ahead of President Donald Trump's speech at the monument Friday, July 3, 2020. (Screenshot: NDN Collective via Facebook)" title="Native groups and other protesters block a highway leading to Mount Rushmore ahead of President Donald Trump's speech at the monument Friday, July 3, 2020. (Screenshot: NDN Collective via Facebook)" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="461" height="254"></p><span>Protesters
block a highway leading to Mount Rushmore ahead of President Donald
Trump's speech at the monument Friday. (Screenshot: NDN Collective via
Facebook)</span></div><p>Around 5 p.m. local time,
law enforcement started telling defenders to vacate the area or face
arrest, saying the blocking of traffic was an unlawful assembly. They
directed them to head to a designated “free speech zone."</p><p>Law
enforcement officers dressed in riot gear held shields and formed a line
across the road, pushing up against a group of protesters. </p><p>"We
don’t need them to give us permission to do this on our land; we intend
to stay here indefinitely throughout the night," said Nick Tilsen,
Oglala Lakota, of NDN Collective. "Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white
supremacy. When you carve out four white men who conducted genocide
against Native people in this sacred place, it is fundamentally wrong."</p><p>Some
people began to disperse but later returned, as the vans continued
blocking the road. Law enforcement then brought in tow trucks to haul
them away. </p><p>Trump supporters standing behind and near the police
line shouted at treaty defenders. A man claiming to be a veteran
repeatedly offered his help to police.</p><p>After the vans were towed, a small group of treaty defenders continued blocking the highway, holding a large “#LandBack” banner.</p><p>At
7 p.m., police arrested them, using zipties to secure their hands
behind their backs and leading them off the road. Trump supporters
shouted accusations that the defenders were funded by George Soros,
founder and chairman of Open Society Foundations and frequent target of
right-wing conspiracy theorists.</p><p>About 15 people were arrested, <a href="https://apnews.com/e4725ee4f6c777273a4b5dc83ab57823" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Associated Press</a> reported. Tilsen was among them.</p><p>Several
groups of Natives had planned to travel to the monument to voice their
opposition to Trump’s visit, his policies that are seen as challenges to
tribal sovereignty and the very presence of Mount Rushmore, which
features faces of American presidents carved into a mountain held sacred
by many tribes in the region.</p><p>Among those gathered at the highway
Friday was Krystal Two Bulls, an Army veteran and founder of Voices of
the Sacred, an organization aimed at empowering Native youth.</p><p>“We
need to be bringing out the roots of what we’re talking about,” she said
in a livestreamed video of the protest. “This country was founded on
white supremecy,” including the genocide of Natives and slave labor of
Black people.</p><p>“This is a major convergence that we’re seeing
today,” said Two Bulls, Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. “All these
people standing together across the country.”</p><p>The
Black Hills are part of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, and the
country’s highest court ordered compensation in the millions of dollars
to the Lakota for their illegal seizure, an offer the Lakota have
refused for decades. They instead want the Black Hills returned to
tribal authority.</p><p>Mount Rushmore is considered a national memorial
by the National Park Service and is the state’s prized tourist
destination, attracting nearly 3 million visitors each year.</p><p>The
South Dakota Department of Tourism created a lottery system allowing
7,500 people to attend Friday night's program, in which fireworks were
scheduled to be set off at the monument for the first time since 2009. </p><p>The 6
p.m. deadline for entry to the event passed with many cars still
waiting to enter the memorial, though they eventually got through.</p><p>Earlier
in the evening, Tilsen tried to negotiate with the National Park
Service on the removal of treaty defenders and the vans parked in the
middle of the road. </p><p>"We ain't going nowhere," he said. "This is our land. This has been our land for thousands of years."</p><div><p><br></p></div><p> <em>Mary Annette Pember, a citizen of the Red Cliff Ojibwe tribe, is a national correspondent for Indian Country Today.</em></p><p><em><strong>—</strong></em></p><p><em><strong>—</strong></em></p></div></div>
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