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<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header
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href="https://ndncollective.org/four-arrested-after-ndn-landback-campaign-mounts-upside-down-flag-from-100-ft-grain-silo/"
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Four Arrested after NDN
LANDBACK Campaign Mounts Upside-Down Flag From 100-Ft Grain
Silo</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">July 5,
2021<br>
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<h2>for immediate release: <span>July 4, 2021</span></h2>
<p><strong>Rapid City, SD — </strong>Today, Indigenous
climbers representing 10 different Nations from Turtle
Island and Palestine were arrested for confronting the
legacy of white supremacy that is commemorated every
4th of July. Climbers ascended the 100-ft Dakota Mills
Grain silo situated on Lakota lands in downtown Rapid
City and mounted an upside down American flag with
“LANDBACK” written prominantly across it. </p>
<img
src="https://ndncollective-org.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/app/uploads/2021/07/20210702-NDN-press-conference-WEB-14-copy-1-e1625460644849-1024x637.png"
alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="471" height="293"><br>
Photo Courtesy of NDN Collective.<br>
<br>
<div><a href="https://landback.org/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><u>LANDBACK Campaign</u>
team released the following statement: </a>
<p>“An upside-down flag represents being in distress
and is a prominent symbol across Indian Country; we
have just celebrated the Battle of Little Bighorn,
and at that battle the three sister nations of the
Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho defeated General Custer
and the 7th Calvary. In that battle, they claimed
the American flag from the defeated US army. That
flag belongs to us. Today, we refute the dominant
narrative that the American flag represents a legacy
of freedom, democracy, and equality.</p>
</div>
<p>“This day is nothing to celebrate for the Indigenous
Peoples here, or anywhere else the United States has
consumed through imperialism. LANDBACK is not a
metaphor; it is our present reality and our future
struggle. There is no repair or justice until
Indigenous Peoples reclaim our land. This place, the
Black Hills, represents the entire cycle of life and
deserves nothing less than Return.</p>
<p>“Today, we stand with our people, who are in
distress, to speak the truth of what the 4th of July
means in Mniluzahan, or so-called ‘Rapid City.’ The
self-declared “City of Presidents” honors the legacy
of past United States leadership on one hand, while
brutalizing the original peoples and caretakers of the
land on the other.</p>
<p>“Last year, on July 3rd, we saw Indigenous peoples
brutalized and arrested by police atop our own sacred
site and treaty lands, the Black Hills. 21 people were
arrested, including NDN Collective’s President and
CEO, Nick Tilsen, who is Oglala Lakota. Tilsen is <a
href="https://ndncollective.org/nick-tilsen-files-motion-to-dismiss-case-citing-prosecutorial-misconduct-and-constitutional-violations/"
moz-do-not-send="true">still fighting the extreme
charges</a> filed against him over a year ago,
having recently filed a motion to dismiss the charges
based on prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional
rights violations.</p>
<img
src="https://ndncollective-org.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/app/uploads/2021/07/20210702-NDN-press-conference-WEB-14-copy-e1625460762682-1024x663.png"
alt="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="471" height="305"><br>
Photo Courtesy of NDN Collective.
<p>“However, we know that the system that continues to
legally persecute Tilsen and others demanding justice
and LANDBACK for Indigenous peoples is fundamentally
unjust. </p>
<p>“This legacy of white supremacy is commemorated every
4th of July and is built from the same tenants of
colonial violence that carry out the brutalization,
repression, and unjust incarceration of our relatives
in Mniluzahan and beyond. The same colonial violence
is why we are currently unearthing hundreds and
thousands of our children at boarding schools both in
the so-called United States and in so-called Canada,
which is why orange armbands are worn in remembrance.
We contend that this American system, the Rapid City
Police Department, and its supporters are the
perpetrators of this structure of violence and it is
for this reason that we aim to bring a different
narrative to the forefront today.</p>
<p>“Our demands go beyond recognition that Mt. Rushmore,
as an effigy to white supremacy created by a
Kloncilium member — the decision-making body within
the KKK — is desecrating our sacred place. We demand
the dismantling of injustice and reparations for
historic and ongoing violence. We demand the Return of
the Black Hills, dignity and haven for our unsheltered
relatives, justice for our people who are brutalized
by police and routinely incarcerated, and justice for
our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples. We demand
reparations for our Black relatives whose ancestors
were ___ through chattel slavery and who are
persecuted by the American system today. </p>
<p>“LANDBACK is not a metaphor, it is our present
reality and our future struggle. There is no repair or
justice until Indigenous peoples reclaim our land. The
Black Hills are not just a sacred place because it’s a
significant cultural site, it’s a sacred place because
it gives life and what is life-giving is sacred. We
used to drink clean water here, harvested our
medicines here, fell in love here, got married here,
gave birth here, mourned our loved ones here. This
place, the Black Hills, represents the entire cycle of
life and deserves nothing less than Return.”</p>
<h2>To Donate Legal fees for Arestees, VISiT <a
href="https://ndnlegalfund.org/"
moz-do-not-send="true">NDNLEGALFUND.ORG</a></h2>
<hr>
<div>
<p><strong>Climber Quotes: </strong></p>
<p>“I came here today to support and be of service to
my community and relatives here and around the
world. We must bring LANDBACK to the forefront,
shout it out loud and claim it publicly so that we
can unmask the reality that we are living across
Turtle Island, something that so many people choose
not to pay attention to. I want everyone to engage
in what it means to demand a different reality, to
undo the legacy of US hegemony” – <strong>Tytianna
Harris, climber</strong></p>
</div>
<p>“We are done with the false narratives and erasure of
our very existence. On this day, we demand an
acknowledgement of the origins and foundation of this
co called country…genocide, slavery and stolen land.
There is no repair, justice or liberation without
Indigenous LANDBACK. Let today be a notice, that we
will not stop until we reclaim our rightful
relationship to the land. The Black Hills gives life.
Anyting that gives and sustains life, is sacred. We
must do everything within our power to protect all
that we hold sacred.</p>
<p>“LANDBACK is a movement that belongs to the People.
As a caretaker & protector of the Black Hills, I
call on all the Indigneous Peoples of the world who
have been forcefully removed from their lands – at the
hands of militarism, imperialism, capitalism &
corportarism – to stand and join the struggle to get
our LANDBACK!” – <strong>Krystal Two Bulls (Northern
Cheyenne, Oglala Lakota), NDN Collective’s LANDBACK
Campaign Director. </strong></p>
<p>“This action marks a notch in the paradigm shift, one
that has a long lineage, to highlight ongoing colonial
violence and militarism to material demands tied to
liberation. As the US continues to fund displacement
and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, we highlight that
the first frontier of the fight against US imperialism
was and is here on Turtle Island. The fight for
justice and LANDBACK is alive and well and it is
growing. LANDBACK is the root of justice for what must
come and it is the start of our collective demands.
From Hawai’i, to Puerto Rico, to Guam, to the Black
Hills, return all US-occupied lands and stop the
US war machine abroad”- <strong>Nadya Tannous, NDN
Collective’s LANDBACK Campaign Organizer</strong></p>
<p>“Return Indigenous lands to Indigenous hands.
Dismantle the systems that took our land in the first
place. Because of these systems, Indigenous people are
10X more likely to be incarcerated than any white
person in the state of South Dakota. Indigenous
people make up 9% of the population in the state, and
somehow represent 51% of all incarcerated people in
the state. This is ground zero for over-incarceration
for Indigenous people. This is why here and why now,
to create a different future.</p>
<p>“I am here for Indigenous youth. The ones forcibly
taken from our people in the name of the American
flag, forced into boarding schools by the American
flag, the ones secretly buried under the flag, the
ones that are just now being found. I’m grateful for
the ones like my maternal grandparents who survived
these atrocities… </p>
<p>“I’m doing this for the Indigenous youth of today, we
love you, we’re here for you. We’re here to push
against white supremacy & racism… to protect you
until you are ready to lead. I’m here as a son of the
Alcatraz Occupation like many of the relatives
here who are the descendants of Wounded Knee. I’m here
to pass that on to our youth like my aunt and mother
who stood for us before we were born.</p>
<p>“I do not celebrate this flag. I recognize it as the
flag of our people’s murderers, as the flag of the
enslavers, the thieves who stole our lands, the liars
who wrote these horrors out of their history books.” <strong>-Martin
Aranaydo (Tohono O’Odham, Akimel O’Odham,
MVSKOKE, Pilipino), Climber.</strong></p>
<p><strong>###</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://ndncollective.org/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><em><u>NDN Collective</u></em></a><em> is
an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building
Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism,
philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and
narrative change, we are creating sustainable
solutions on Indigenous terms.</em></p>
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