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Associated Press
23-06-2025
- Associated Press
Tribe asked to allow search for civil rights activist at Wounded Knee
The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council will be asked to approve a search for the remains of a Black civil rights activist who disappeared during the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff. He is likely buried on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Perry Ray Robinson Jr. was 35 years old when he left his home in Bogue Chitto, Alabama, in April 1973 to answer a call for help from the American Indian Movement. For 71 days, AIM members and supporters occupied the village and exchanged gunfire with federal agents gathered around its perimeter. Robinson never returned, was later declared dead without his body being found, and no one was ever charged. His name came to light after two men were indicted in 2003 on charges they killed Canadian Annie Mae Aquash in December 1975 in South Dakota's badlands. Arlo Looking Cloud was arrested in Denver. A federal jury in Rapid City convicted him in 2004 of murder. He was sentenced to life in federal prison, but that was later reduced to 20 years because of his cooperation and acceptance of responsibility. He was released in 2019. The other man, John Graham, fought extradition from his native Canada. A state jury in Rapid City convicted him of murder in 2010 and he is serving a life prison sentence at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls. Hulu documentary about Aquash Justin Baker, 40, who lives in Mission on South Dakota's Rosebud Indian Reservation, started the latest effort to search for Robinson's body. He has been following the Aquash and Robinson cases since Looking Cloud and Graham were indicted. That included reading media accounts and documents released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. Baker said he also spent considerable time with Leonard Crow Dog, a Sicangu Lakota medicine man and AIM's spiritual leader who died in 2021. Baker said he was prompted to action after watching a recent documentary about Aquash on the streaming service Hulu entitled ' Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae.' Witnesses testified that Aquash, who also responded to AIM's request for help and rose to prominence in the organization, was killed because she was suspected of being an informant. 'I started thinking, 'Why can't they do something for this man, Ray Robinson?'' Baker said. He called Paul DeMain of Hayward, Wisconsin, the former editor of the News From Indian Country newspaper who extensively investigated the Aquash and Robinson cases. Among the people DeMain put Baker in touch with was Robinson's widow, Cheryl Buswell-Robinson, and their son, Deeter Robinson. 'I asked Deeter, I said, 'What would you like me to tell people?' And he said what it was like growing up without a dad, not having somebody at my sporting events, not having a man's guidance, not having a father to lean on, and it caused a lot of hardships in my life,' Baker said of the conversation. 'This is somebody's family that was destroyed and is still hurting 52 years later, and there are still people remaining silent.' Concerns about 1890 massacre site DeMain had already done extensive work trying to identify Robinson's likely resting place. Baker took up the cause using tribal channels. 'I wanted to create a grassroots effort because I think everything else has been tried already,' he said. Baker presented a resolution to and received unanimous support for it in May from the Sicangu Lakota Treaty Council. That group in the Great Sioux Nation advocates for Native treaty rights and inherent sovereignty. The document's purpose was to start building support for a culturally sensitive search for Robinson's remains on the Pine Ridge reservation. Baker then went to the Oglala Sioux Tribe's land committee on Pine Ridge, which rejected the request for a search, saying it could unearth remains or artifacts from the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre. Baker said the search would only involve a cadaver dog or ground-penetrating radar that would not disrupt the land. And the area already has been disturbed, he said. 'Wherever Ray is laying was already disturbed through the form of buildings, construction within the downtown Wounded Knee area, or it was disturbed in 1973 from digging bunkers,' Baker said. Baker has drawn up a resolution he plans to present to the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council, which includes the Sicangu Lakota Treaty Council resolution and letters of support from elders, descendants of the 1890 massacre and others. The document, viewed by South Dakota News Watch, calls for all Lakota tribes, in collaboration with Buswell-Robinson and cultural experts, to create a working group to oversee a non-invasive search for the remains of Robinson. The effort would include historic preservation officers, spiritual leaders and elders, the Robinson family, Indigenous archaeologists and forensic scientists and independent advisers. 'This resolution does not seek the removal or exhumation of any remains but seeks only to locate, document and honor the possible resting place of Perry Ray Robinson Jr.,' it states. The document also calls for transparency and respect of those who died in 1890 and might have been killed on the site in 1973. 'We're asking to search the ground that already has been disturbed and is a long way from the burial of the 1890 massacre victims,' Buswell-Robinson said. Tribal leaders did not respond to a request for comment. Widow hopes for Robinson's return Besides a son, who has children, the Robinsons have two adult daughters in Detroit, Desiree Marks and Tamara Fant, who have their own children and grandchildren. 'I'm 80 and doing fine. I'd like to get Ray back here before I'm dead,' Buswell-Robinson said. 'I'm excited about it because Justin (Baker) is so excited. 'He's been wonderful to follow and has a strategy.' Buswell-Robinson said that because she's in Detroit, she doesn't have the connections or know the local structures or politics like Baker does. Based on her recollections and letters she wrote in the years after her husband's disappearance, she believes he probably was killed because he naively thought he could turn an unorganized situation into a focused demonstration. His nonviolent approach probably was not well received at what was a violent situation, Buswell-Robinson said. And it's possible AIM members suspected he was a federal informant, which he was not, she said. FBI documents include references to fresh graves Two American Indians were confirmed to have died during the 1973 siege, and rumors of other deaths persist. FBI documents that are now public suggest the possibility of other people buried at Wounded Knee during the occupation. A May 1973 memo says the FBI talked to a man who reported grave sites just outside of Wounded Knee. Another, a few days later, states that an Interior Department official 'observed several fresh graves' at Wounded Knee. One of the graves belonged to one of the two Native Americans killed, the memo states. There's no mention of Ray Robinson in the FBI correspondence, but two documents reveal the presence of two Black people toward the end of the standoff. A May 5, 1973, transcript of an interview with a man who claimed to be at Wounded Knee the week prior stated 'he heard that one black man and one black woman had recently arrived.' A May 21, 1973, FBI memo reported that a Native woman who left the village a month earlier counted 200 Indians, 11 whites and two Blacks. Buswell-Robinson said those two were most likely Ray Robinson and a woman from Alabama who went with him. She returned after the standoff. He didn't. ___ This story was originally published by South Dakota News Watch and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Author Provides an Intimate Look at the Indian Child Welfare Act and the Adoption of her Native American daughter
Book covers the difficulties that arose from adopting a Native American child and managing the unknown health history, disabling physical conditions, and the reconciliation of all participants LAKEWOOD, Colo., June 9, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- In 1970, Colorado Child Welfare labeled author Dianne Haaland's future daughter as "unadoptable" because she was a minority. At the time, few people knew about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders or the Indian Child Welfare Act. At their first meeting, Haaland and her husband were mesmerized by a beautiful, beguiling baby girl and wanted to bring her home immediately. The final adoption occurred six months later. In "Finding Pieces and Peace," Haaland shares the challenges she and her daughter, Tanya, faced, including lies and misleading statements form officials, suicide attempts and drug abuse. They chose to share their stories to help others, including some alternative pathways that they tried and often failed at. "Many times, people don't take the time to learn about the past and have no base or starting point to do something better," said Haaland. "We can't offer advice for your situation, as no two conditions are the same. But we can offer ideas to give you a multitude of choices to evaluate and choose for your situation." Haaland and her ex-husband had one child and were a foster home to thirty-three, mostly Native American, children over three years. Besides her own story, she also includes information about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, the Indian Child Welfare Act, court appointed special advocates and the American Indian Movement, as many are not familiar with these topics, and they play largely into her story. "I hope our book gives a voice to foster children, adoptees, and relinquishing mothers who wanted to share their stories," said Haaland. "Finding Pieces and Peace: My Apache Daughter's Journey for Answers in a White World" By Dianne Haaland ISBN: 9781665764070 (softcover); 9781665764094 (hardcover); 9781665764087 (electronic) Available at Archway Publishing, [Amazon and Barnes & Noble About the author Dianne Haaland is a lifelong learner who earned a bachelors degree at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, S.D. and an MBA from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo. This is her second memoir. Haaland and her ex-husband have one daughter and were a foster home To learn more, please visit Media Contact Ziggy Goldfarb, Archway Publishing, 4803067065, zgoldfarb@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Author Dianne Haaland Sign in to access your portfolio
Chicago Tribune
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Coca-Cola first sold
Today is Thursday, May 8, the 128th day of 2025. There are 237 days left in the year. Today in history: On May 8, 1886, the first serving of Coca-Cola, which contained cocaine, was sold at a pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia. (The drink became fully cocaine-free in 1929.) Also on this date: In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River, the first recorded European to do so. In 1846, U.S. forces led by Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican forces near modern-day Brownsville, Texas, in the first major battle of the Mexican-American War. In 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced in a radio address that Nazi Germany's forces had surrendered, stating that 'the flags of freedom fly all over Europe' on V-E (Victory in Europe) Day. In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement and the Oglala Lakota tribe, who had occupied the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks, surrendered to federal authorities. In 1978, David R. Berkowitz pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn courtroom to murder, attempted murder and assault in connection with the 'Son of Sam' shootings that claimed six lives and terrified New Yorkers. (Berkowitz was sentenced to six consecutive life prison terms.) In 1984, the Soviet Union announced it would boycott the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. In 2020, U.S. unemployment surged to 14.7%, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression; the government reported that more than 20 million Americans had lost their jobs in April amid the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Today's Birthdays: Biologist/TV presenter David Attenborough is 99. Poet Gary Snyder is 95. Singer Toni Tennille is 85. Pianist Keith Jarrett is 80. Singer Philip Bailey (Earth, Wind and Fire) is 74. Rock musician Chris Frantz (Talking Heads) is 74. Rock musician Alex Van Halen is 72. Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Cowher is 68. Football Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott is 66. Filmmaker Michel Gondry is 62. Actor Melissa Gilbert is 61. Singer Enrique Iglesias is 50. Musician Joe Bonamassa is 48. Actor Domhnall Gleeson is 42.
Boston Globe
08-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Today in History: May 8, Allies celebrate Nazi surrender in World War II
In 1846, US forces led by General Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican forces near modern-day Brownsville, Texas, in the first major battle of the Mexican-American War. Advertisement In 1886, the first serving of Coca-Cola, which contained cocaine, was sold at a pharmacy in Atlanta, Ga. (The drink became fully cocaine-free in 1929.) In 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced in a radio address that Nazi Germany's forces had surrendered, stating that 'the flags of freedom fly all over Europe' on V-E (Victory in Europe) Day. In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement and the Oglala Lakota tribe, who had occupied the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks, surrendered to federal authorities. In 1978, David R. Berkowitz pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn courtroom to murder, attempted murder, and assault in connection with the 'Son of Sam' shootings that claimed six lives and terrified New Yorkers. (Berkowitz was sentenced to six consecutive life prison terms.) Advertisement In 1984, the Soviet Union announced it would boycott the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. In 2020, US unemployment surged to 14.7 percent, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression; the government reported that more than 20 million Americans had lost their jobs in April amid the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Free Leonard Peltier' Follows A 50-Year Trail To Justice For Native American Icon – Thessaloniki Int'l Documentary Festival
It's an elusive dream for so many docmakers: to impact legislation, to find justice, to make a difference. To change the world. With Free Leonard Peltier, filmmakers Jesse Short Bull (Lakota Nation vs. United States) and David France (How To Survive a Plague) achieved their eponymous goal: Seven days before the world premiere of their film at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in January, President Joe Biden, in his last act before leaving office, issued a clemency order, commuting Peltier's sentence to home confinement. The Native American activist had served nearly 50 years in a federal prison, having been convicted of murder of two FBI agents in a shootout at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. Peltier's attorneys and supporters would wage a decades-long battle through appeals, writs and petitions to circuit courts, federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and three U.S. presidents, alleging numerous incidents of misconduct by the FBI in Peltier's case. His cause became a global cause célèbre, attracting the support of Nobel Laureates, scholars, artists, and civil rights leaders. More from Deadline Sundance To Unveil Doc On Paul Reubens/Pee-Wee Herman, Exploring Actor's Life And Sexuality, Plus Films On Selena, Marlee Matlin, 'Zodiac Killer Project' & More Thessaloniki Film Festival Head On This Year's Edition & How Climate Change And Rising Political Extremism Have Made It Harder To Mount Film Events Scene 2 Seen Podcast: Filmmakers Jesse Short Bull And Laura Tomaselli Discuss Their Documentary 'Lakota Nation Vs. The United States' And The Ongoing Battle For Sacred Land Between The Two The Free Leonard Peltier team rushed back to the editing room to add this happy ending, working at a feverish pace to craft a new DCP for the January 27th premiere. Peltier was released on February 18 from a federal correctional facility in Florida to home confinement at the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. The film screens Wednesday at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival after celebrating its international premiere at TiDF Tuesday night. While Jesse Short Bull and David France hadn't worked together before, they both came to the project with a long history of activism–and a deep admiration for Peltier and his iconic stature. France was in the audience at a 2022 screening of Short Bull's previous film, Lakota Nation vs. United States. Short Bull's producers, Jody Archambault, Jane Myers and Bird Runningwater, made the introduction between the filmmakers. France has had a distinguished career as a journalist, activist and filmmaker, having focused primarily on the LGBTQ+ movement. He was very much aware of, and inspired by, the American Indian Movement (AIM) during its heyday in the 1970s. 'The American Indian Movement was in my childhood, a very significant force, drove a lot of news coverage and animated a lot of people's interest in justice,' France tells Deadline. 'I saw it as a natural outgrowth of the kind of political activism that I've covered from the queer perspective, to see where those parallels were.' Short Bull, a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe, grew up in South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Reservation. Over the past decade, he's been active in his community, helping to provide support for Native college students and participating in filmmaking workshops. How did the two filmmakers complement each other? 'My philosophy is, How can I best serve the story?' he says. 'David had a pretty extensive background with Leonard's story, and I didn't have anywhere near that level of understanding of some of the events. However, I'm from Pine Ridge. I live here, in southwestern South Dakota. I'm active within my tribe. I'm really rooted here in the community. Once I started to familiarize myself with Leonard's story, then it became whatever we can do to make it the most effective that we can. I became a servant to the story, in that sense.' The story of AIM, Peltier and the conflicts at Pine Ridge have been the subject of several documentaries over the past few decades, including Michael Apted's Incident at Oglala (1993) and Stanley Nelson and Julianna Brannum''s Wounded Knee (2009). Much has come to light in the decades since those films, including, most recently, a letter from U.S. Attorney James H. Reynolds that sharply criticized Peltier's trial and how federal authorities handled the case. 'We wanted to use the advantage of having hindsight, to be able to tell the full story,' says France. 'We wanted to ask the question, Why did this happen? As far as our division of labor went, Jesse really led the research initiative to try to get to those answers. Jesse brought all of that to the interviewing; I was more involved in the shaping of the archive.' In a 2024 interview with Julianna Brannum in the Oklahoma-based publication Luxiere, Brannum points out that in making Wounded Knee, Nelson had admitted that he didn't know much about Native history but as an African American, 'he knew about generational trauma, and he understood that there are differences in trauma and how it affects different people.' For France, generational trauma figured largely in joining the Free Leonard Peltier project. 'At one of our meetings, I realized that all of us who were principally involved were either Native or queer or both,' France recalls. 'We all brought a tremendous history of personal trauma to all of these questions that we were taking on. That united us in our dedicated pursuit of truth in this story. What we all shared was the experience of having things go remarkably badly based on prejudice in our personal lives, in our collective communities. It wasn't hard for us to see where that happened in the story of Leonard Peltier, where he was carrying the weight of punishment that the federal government wanted to burden the entire movement with.' In the process of interviewing the witnesses, survivors and elders, Short Bull deployed a style rooted more in the Lakota culture of storytelling than in common journalistic practice. 'What was ingrained in me being around Pine Ridge was how you communicate with people. Essentially, every word that you speak should be viewed like a prayer. So you have to be really careful about what you say and how you talk to people that are older than you. 'In this process of filmmaking, it's a delicate balance,' Short Bull continues. 'You want to try to get to the story, but you also have to take into account that there's a spiritual component to every action that we do. How I navigate that balance is by trying to treat everyone like I would my grandparents or my closest relative. Some of these things are so intense that how you talk about them has to be done with great care, great purpose' For France, this protocol meant rethinking the art of interviewing, as informed by his longtime journalistic practice. 'When I first started on the project, I'd spent some time on the reservation in Pine Ridge, but [this] was my first time as a storyteller, as a journalist, and I recognized that it was a world that was very different from the one I come from. One of our producers suggested that we begin our process with a prayer for the production. We reached out to a spiritual leader, who gathered us together and offered a prayer for us, but it was also a kind of a master class in how we had to go about our research on this project. The key thing that he said to me was, 'Don't ask for anything; wait for it to come.' He also said something that they tell us in journalism school: Leave yourself behind. 'I attempt to practice what I sometimes call 'radical empathy' in my journalism,' France continues. 'It's an effort to really remove my own perspective and point of view in order to try and feel what the person feels, whose story I'm telling, or what their community feels. I knew it was going to be difficult for me in this story. Just watching Jesse's remarkable interviewing patterns and how deep he was able to penetrate the story, without really asking for the story. And often, Jesse would keep his eyes closed through the interview, and didn't ask follow-up questions.' Speaking of interviews, journalist Kevin McKiernan, who covered the Pine Ridge episode and its aftermath, spoke to Peltier in 1990, and that conversation serves as a narrative throughline for the film. Short Bull and France used other audio sources, such as phone conversations friends and family had surreptitiously recorded. Thanks to AI technology, the filmmakers enhanced the quality of all of the recordings. 'We were able to take the vocal data set from that interview that Kevin did and use Leonard's voice to re-voice Leonard's voice, and put it all into this kind of singular vocal environment to make it seem as though it were a master interview that drove the entire thing,' France explains. 'And there was a small part where we used his writings to address an area that he hadn't covered. This was all done with his permission.' In addition to the interviews and footage, the filmmakers availed themselves of massive amounts of material compiled by both AIM and the NDN Collective, a South Dakota-based Indigenous-led activist organization. President Biden's 11th-hour clemency culminated a positive series of circumstances: Biden had also appointed the first Native American cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland, as Secretary of the Interior, and just weeks before the U.S. presidential election, he issued a public apology for the U.S. Indian Boarding School Program, a notorious chapter of cultural erasure, forced assimilation and rampant abuse. In addition, the filmmakers and their impact team presented a work-in-progress screening of Free Leonard Peltier on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC in December that was well-attended and well-received. 'People really felt the need to do something on Leonard's case,' France maintains. 'Biden's legacy is that he has been the most pro-Indigenous president in U.S. history, and that he could really seal that with clemency for Leonard. I think that that conversation, of which we played a very small part, was really beginning to ramp up after December.' But now, given the current administration's turbo-charged authoritarian proclivities, the team is facing significant headwinds. Nonetheless, they are fielding invitations from festivals, are in talks with prospective distributors, and as part of their impact campaign, they will take Free Leonard Peltier on a reservation tour, with significant support from the California-based San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, the film's presenting partner. 'There is hope,' Short Bull asserts. 'Back in the '70s, things got so bad. There was no justice; it was just so dangerous, but especially to a lot of the people that I know from Pine Ridge, who keep history and stories. We've seen darker days, where our people were hurting each other regularly. But a lot of positive activity grew out of that. So you can look to history to see how you can get through times where these things seem scary. If we can crawl out of that, we can get out of any situation.' 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