Indigenous People

On Red Dress Day, First Nations Call On Government To Heed Calls For Justice

May 7, 2025 Nick Seebruch, Rabble. Resist! Canada, First Nations, Indigenous People, Indigenous Women, MMIWG2S, Red Dress Day

May 5 marks Red Dress Day. Across the country, red dresses are hung in windows, clotheslines, and trees to recognize Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirit Peoples (MMIWG2S). Despite making up only four per cent of the total adult female population in Canada, Indigenous women make up 10 per cent of the total number of all people who have gone missing in Canada. Of the nearly 7,000 police-reported female homicides that took place between 1980 and 2014, nearly 16 per cent of the victims were Indigenous women. The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is marking the occasion by calling on the new Liberal government to urgently address the 231 Calls for Justice included in the final report of the 2019 National Inquiry Into Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

An Indigenous Credit Union Is Leaning Into Mobile Banking

April 28, 2025 Connie Aitcheson, Next City. Create! Banking, Credit Union, Indigenous People, Pine Ridge

When Lakota Federal Credit Union opened its doors in 2012 in Kyle, South Dakota, access to a financial institution was severely limited for the people of Pine Ridge Reservation. Up to 60% of community members were unbanked — a proportion that bank leaders believe has since decreased thanks to initiatives such as Lakota FCU’s mobile banking unit. “It’s always been about accessibility, for us to be in communities that can’t up and just come to Kyle on a whim,” says Shayna Ferguson, manager and CEO of Lakota FCU, a federally-certified community development financial institution with about $15.9 million in total assets.

‘Invasion Day’ Protests Draw Tens Of Thousands Across Australia

February 2, 2025 Arama Rata, People's Dispatch. Resist! Australia, colonization, Indigenous People, Indigenous Rights, Invasion Day, Palestine Solidarity

Tens of thousands of people took part in “Invasion Day” protests in cities and towns across Australia on Sunday, January 26. The protests highlighted the ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples under colonial occupation, and opposed the celebration of ‘Australia Day,’ which falls on January 26—the anniversary of the British invasion of the lands now known as Australia, in 1788. Ruby Wharton, Community Development Officer at Sisters Inside Inc., spoke at the Invasion Day protest in Meanjin (Brisbane). Protesters met at Victoria Park before marching through the city to Musgrave Park, the site of the Brisbane Sovereign Embassy, established in 2012 as a symbol of Aboriginal sovereignty.

Indigenous-Led Environmental Planning: A Blueprint For Equity

November 27, 2024 Somia Sadiq and Desiree Theriault, Next City. Create! Canada, Indigenous People, Landback, Urban Planning

We gather around the dinner table as one of the participants starts a smudge ceremony. Among us are three women who transitioned out of the sex trade more than 20 years ago. They carry the deep scars of their pasts, including Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which shapes how they navigate our meetings. They only speak with those they trust. Their triggers — such as needing to sit where they can see everything — are reminders of how trauma shapes their lives. We know these conversations will touch on their past, but only at a pace they set. To rush would mean losing their trust.

Maya Ixil Elders Prepare To Give Their Testimony In Genocide Case

August 16, 2024 Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala, Popular Resistance. Resist! Genocide, Guatemala, Indigenous People, Legal System

Guatemala City, Guatemala - On Monday August 12, 2024, the defense lawyers of ex-general Manuel Benedícto Lucas García, accused of genocide, forced disappearance and crimes against humanity of the Maya Ixil people, made a frivolous and malicious attempt to dismiss the case surrounding the genocide of the Maya Ixil people in Guatemala. The case against ex-general Lucas García has been in progress for four months since it began on April 5, 2024 at the First Court of Criminal Sentencing, Narco Activity and Crimes against the Environment, for High Risk Processes, Group "A", Guatemala City, Guatemala.

North Carolina City Takes First Steps Toward Cherokee Cultural Corridor

January 14, 2024 Brittany Moseley, Next City. Create! Indigenous culture, Indigenous People, North Carolina

For decades, the town of Franklin, North Carolina, owned Noquisiyi (later interpreted as Nikwasi) Mound. The mound is the only thing that remains of a Cherokee settlement that dates back to the 16th century. The town’s meeting hall once sat atop the mound. Now, the Nikwasi Initiative is working to protect and honor local sites that play an essential role in the heritage of a regional Indian tribe — including the Nikwasi Mound. The organization, which was founded in 2019, is the byproduct of a conflict that arose between Franklin city officials and members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, according to executive director Elaine Eisenbraun.

The Lower Sioux Need Homes, So They’re Building Them From Hemp

December 24, 2023 Judith Matloff, Next City. Create! green housing, Hempcrete, Indigenous People, Native Americans, Sustainability

For now, it’s only a gaping hole in the ground, 100-by-100 feet, surrounded by farm machinery and bales of hemp on a sandy patch of earth on the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation in southwestern Minnesota. But when construction is complete next April, the Lower Sioux — also known as part of the Mdewakanton Band of Dakota — will have a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing campus that will allow them to pioneer a green experiment, the first of its kind in the United States. They will have an integrated vertical operation to grow hemp, process it into insulation called hempcrete, and then build healthy homes with it. Right now, no one in the U.S. does all three.

Activists Disrupt Thanksgiving Parade: End Genocide, Don’t Celebrate It

November 24, 2023 Emma Lee and Kyle Thibodeau, Left Voice. Resist! Chicago, Genocide, History, Illinois, Indigenous People, Israel, New York (NY), New York City (NYC), Palestine, Thanksgiving

Today, pro-Palestine protestors disrupted Thanksgiving Day Parades in New York City and Detroit, all sending the same message: end genocide, don’t celebrate it. In Detroit, protestors marched in front of the Thanksgiving Day parade route carrying banners reading: “From Turtle Island to Palestine, genocide is a crime” and “Detroit stands with Gaza,” giving a spotlight to Palestine during Israel’s ongoing atrocities. In Manhattan, protestors disrupted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, an annual corporate parade watched nationwide, with signs and banners reading “Genocide then, genocide now.”

These Indigenous Leaders Started Rapid City’s First Lakota School

November 15, 2023 Cinnamon Janzer, Next City. Create! cultural preservation, Education, Indigenous People, South Dakota

After the 30 documented boarding schools that operated in South Dakota until the 1970s stripped the state’s Indigenous Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people of their culture, language, history and human rights, Indigenous students have floundered in the state’s public school system. With high school graduation rates for Native American students hovering around 50%, some communities have sought to right educational wrongs through charter schools. But their proposals have repeatedly been stalled: A bill proposed by Native American legislators and communities to create state-funded charter schools focused on teaching Lakota language, culture and history failed for the third time last year.

Indigenous-Led Solutions Essential To Reversing Plastic Pollution

August 18, 2022 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Resist! Environment, Indigenous People, Plastic, pollution

Plastic pollution is an international problem, as trillions of pieces of plastic have made their way into the ocean from commercial and household waste, blown from landfills and trash cans into sewers and rivers and out to sea. Marine animals can ingest and become entangled in ocean plastic, leading to sickness, starvation and death. Plastic leaches toxic chemicals and doesn’t biodegrade naturally in the environment. An inordinate amount of plastic waste has been dumped in the Pacific Islands (Te Moananui) in what is referred to as waste colonization or waste colonialism — where a disproportionate amount of plastic pollution is dumped in a region, leading to threats to the livelihoods and health of its people, a press release from The University of Newcastle, Australia, said.

American Indian Movement Announces Walk For Leonard Peltier

January 5, 2022 Darren Thompson, Native News Online. Resist! Indigenous People, Indigenous Resistance, Leonard Peltier, Political Prisoner

Minneapolis, Minnesota - The American Indian Movement’s Grand Governing Council (AIMGGC) announced on Tuesday that it’s organizing a freedom walk for Leonard Peltier later this year, from September 1 through November 14, 2022. “Leonard Peltier’s Walk to Justice” will start in Minneapolis and end in Washington, D.C., where organizers plan to meet with government officials to demand the release of Peltier from the U.S. federal prison system. “The vision and prayer for this walk—Leonard Peltier’s Walk to Justice—began almost two years ago through dreams,” said American Indian Movement of Indiana and Kentucky Chapter Director Rachel Thunder to Native News Online. “We, AIMGGC, knew we had to move in a big way to see Elder Leonard Peltier released.”

California’s Grim Genocidal Past Implicates University Of California

November 20, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Indigenous People, Indigenous Rights, University of California

The United States of America is founded on the original sin of Native American genocide and the myth that the Indigenous Peoples that lived on these lands for thousands of years had no right to it. White settler colonialism is not just a stain on the country’s history, it is its very raison d’etre. To this day, all non-Native Americans live on stolen land. The prosperous, liberal state of California is not exempt from this original sin, nor has it made reparations for the devastation of Indigenous Peoples and their lands. In a recently reissued book, Tony Platt, the acclaimed author of 10 books and professor emeritus who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and California State University, Sacramento, uncovers another more recent abhorrence committed against Native Californians by one of the state’s most revered institutions, the University of California, Berkeley.

Land Acknowledgements To Honor Indigenous People Often Do Opposite

October 14, 2021 Elisa J. Sobo, Michael Lambert, And Valerie Lambert, The Conversation. Educate! Colonialism, Indigenous People, Land Acknowledgement, Sovereignty

Many events these days begin with land acknowledgments: earnest statements acknowledging that activities are taking place, or institutions, businesses and even homes are built, on land previously owned by Indigenous peoples. And many organizations now call on employees to incorporate such statements not only at events but in email signatures, videos, syllabuses and so on. Organizations provide resources to facilitate these efforts, including pronunciation guides and video examples. Some land acknowledgments are carefully constructed in partnership with the dispossessed. The Burke Museum at the University of Washington in Seattle describes this process: “Tribal elders and leaders are the experts and knowledge-bearers who generously shared their perspectives and guidance with the Burke. Through this consultation, we co-created the Burke’s land acknowledgement.”

Racism In Chile

July 24, 2020 Andre Vltchek, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Chile, colonization, Indigenous People, Racism, White Supremacy

Recently, when a retired Chilean U.N. employee tried to enter ECLAC (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Santiago de Chile) to claim her pension in a bank inside the compound, her car was stopped by a U.N. security officer. She was asked to complete formalities. To her taste, the process was taking too much time, and she began honking. The head of security approached her, trying to explain the procedure, which had recently toughened up, due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The security head happened to be an African-Brazilian.

The Struggle To Protect The Sacred Place Where Life Begins

June 28, 2020 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Arctic, Divestment, Indigenous People, Oil and Gas

As the Trump administration neared the end of its first year in office in 2017, it seemed environmental activists had lost one of the most hard-fought battles in the movement’s history. Thanks to a last-minute maneuver by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Congressional Republicans succeeded in passing legislation allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. Some of the worst fears of environmental and Indigenous rights groups for what might happen under the administration appeared to be coming true. However, two and a half years later, no drilling or seismic testing has taken place in the refuge — and there is a very real chance it might never happen. A nationwide grassroots movement led by the Indigenous Gwich’in people has repeatedly delayed the oil leasing process and made the prospect of drilling less attractive to major companies.

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