South Dakota

‘No Indians Allowed’: An Open Letter To The Rapid City Community

October 13, 2024 Valeriah Big Eagle, NDN Collective. Resist! Indigenous Rights, Native Americans, Racism, Rapid City, South Dakota

For those who have been following the news, they will remember the Grand Gateway Hotel and may have heard about the recent bankruptcy filing. This resulted in a delay in justice and accountability. By filing for bankruptcy, the owners of the Grand Gateway Hotel have bought themselves time and halted the federal civil rights lawsuit against them. While justice is delayed, we are still fighting and holding the owners accountable to our people. This is not over. As we work to challenge the systems and injustices our people face on a daily basis, we also reflect on the impacts such blatant racism has on our community.

Racist Hotel Owners File For Bankruptcy Ahead Of Civil Rights Trial

September 10, 2024 Brandy Calabaza, NDN Collective. Resist! Bankruptcy, Civil Rights, Native Americans, Racism, South Dakota

Rapid City, SD – On Saturday, September 7 the Retsel Corporation, owners of the Grand Gateway Hotel, filed for bankruptcy just before the start of the federal civil rights trial brought by NDN Collective scheduled to begin Monday. NDN Collective filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2022 against the Grand Gateway Hotel after it denied service to Native Americans because of their race. The Retsel Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which allows the business to remain open as it reorganizes its debts. Under this filing, all other litigation must pause until the business settles in bankruptcy court and that timeline is still to be determined. As a result, the civil rights lawsuit against the Grand Gateway is on hold.

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Prohibits Governor From Reservation

April 5, 2024 Darren Thompson, Last Real Indians. Resist! Cheyenne River Sioux, Indigenous Communities, Oglala Sioux, Sioux Nation, South Dakota, Sovereignty

Eagle Butte, South Dakota - On Wednesday, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council joined the Oglala Sioux Tribe in banishing South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem from tribal lands. The ban comes amid recent comments made by Gov. Noem suggesting that tribal leaders were in partnership with Mexican cartels, and a day after Noem made a statement asking tribal leaders to banish cartels from tribal lands. “I call on all our tribal leaders to banish the cartels from tribal lands,” said South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem in a statement on Tuesday, April 4.

South Dakota Tribes Face Off Again With Governor Kristi Noem

March 22, 2024 Darren Thompson, Last Real Indians. Resist! Indigenous Activism, Kristi Noem, Oglala Sioux, Racism, South Dakota

South Dakota—Last week, while signing two education bills Governor Kristi Noem made comments about wanting to improve Native American students’ achievement, and blamed parents and Tribal leaders for their poor performance. Gov. Noem also said that some Tribal leaders in the state were in partnership with Mexican cartels, and four Tribal Nations have responded demanding an apology. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (CRST) issued a statement saying, “Last week while visiting Mitchell and Winner, South Dakota, Governor Noem used those events as an opportunity to spew hateful gossip about Native people.

Dozens Hold Sit-In To Demand Resignation Of SD State’s Attorney

November 25, 2023 NDN Collective. Resist! Accountability, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Legal System, South Dakota

Rapid City, SD – Yesterday, the families of Nevaeh Brave Heart, Aiko Storm White Eagle, Kasey Arehart, and Kyle Whiting held a sit-in at state’s attorney Lara Roetzel’s office for five hours, calling for her resignation and for an independent investigation into the practices of the State’s Attorney office. The families and local community members mobilized this peaceful action to call attention to the state’s attorney’s track record of over prosecuting Native people while also failing to serve justice for Native people who have been murdered. To draw just one sharp comparison: the white man who killed Nevaeh Brave Heart in a hit-and-run and then washed and painted his vehicle to hide evidence was charged with a class one misdemeanor, while Native teenager Kasey Arehart was sentenced to 30 years in prison just for firing a gun, even though no one was hurt.

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.

South Dakota PUC Denies Application For Navigator CO2 Pipeline

September 8, 2023 Caleb Barber, Mitchell Republic. Educate! Carbon Capture, Environment, Pipelines, South Dakota

Pierre, SD - The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday, Sept. 6, unanimously denied Navigator CO2 Ventures' project application to build a CO2 pipeline in the state, determining that the company did not seem to be fully intent on complying with the law of the land if its application for the Heartland Greenway Pipeline was approved. "The burden of proof is on the applicant," Commissioner Kristie Fiegen said. "Here, they have raised their hand and have chose to not comply and have asked for an exemption from local laws." Navigator responded to the decision saying it will evaluate the written decision of the Public Utility Commission once issued and determine its course of action in South Dakota thereafter.

Dakota Men, Women And Youth Ride To Honor 38+2 Executed Warriors

December 28, 2022 Stephanie Tromblay, Workers World. Resist! American genocide, History, Indigenous Rights, Massacre, North Dakota, South Dakota

Dakota men, women and youth rode into Mankato, Minnesota, on horseback on Dec. 26 to honor Dakota warriors hanged by President Abraham Lincoln on that day in 1862, in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The Dakota 38+2 Wokiksuye Sunk Akan Yankapi — the 17-day Dakota Prayer Ride and Water Walk — honors the 38 warriors hanged in Mankato, as well as two additional men who were kidnapped from Canada three years later, brought back to the U.S. and then executed. This year about 100 riders rode from their homes throughout South Dakota and elsewhere to gather at Sisseton, South Dakota, and began the honoring ride on Dec. 10. The ride follows the 330-mile path of their ancestors to the site of the mass hanging. Also this year Dakota runners started Dec. 25 from Fort Snelling in St. Paul, Minnesota, and joined the riders at Reconciliation Park in Mankato.

Our Relatives’ Things

December 17, 2022 Charmaine White Face, Popular Resistance. Educate! Indigenous culture, South Dakota, Wounded Knee

The other day, one of my granddaughters called and said, “Grandma, did you hear? They’re returning articles from a museum in Barre, Vermont, that belonged to our relatives that were massacred at Wounded Knee.” “What?” I said. “What kind of things?” She said, “Things they were wearing or had when they were murdered at Wounded Knee in 1890. There are even baby moccasins, and little kids’ moccasins in there. The soldiers took them off the bodies and they kept them in a museum all these years. Now they’re giving them back.” As descendants of survivors of Wounded Knee, it is our relatives’ things that we are talking about so it hit home really hard. What was in there that might have belonged to our relatives? Moccasins? A shirt? A shawl? Then she asked, “What do you think should happen to these things?”

All Charges Dismissed Against Nick Tilsen In 2.5 Year Long Case

December 14, 2022 NDN Collective. Resist! Indigenous Rights, Legal System, South Dakota, Victory

Rapid City, South Dakota – Today, NDN Collective announced that after nearly two and a half years of legal battles, all charges against NDN Collective president and CEO Nick Tilsen have been dismissed by the state of South Dakota. “My case held a mirror up to the so-called legal system, where prosecutors – fueled by white fragility and fear of Indigenous power – wasted years of state resources to intimidate, criminalize, and violate me,” said Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of NDN Collective. “The fact that I’ve gone from facing 17 years in prison to all charges dismissed is not a coincidence or an act of justice – it’s evidence that the charges were bogus from the start. We only won because we had effective tools and a strong network to fight them, and did not back down until we had exhausted the system that was built to exhaust us.

Native Americans And White Farmers Form An Unlikely Alliance

October 26, 2022 Gretchen Morgenson, NBC News. Resist! Carbon Capture, Indigenous Activism, North Dakota, Pipelines, South Dakota

South Dakota - Since 2010, Joye Braun, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, has fought the construction of oil and gas pipelines in her region, working to protect sacred places where her forebears hunted and fished and lived and died. In many of those battles, Braun came up against white ranchers and farmers who supported the pipelines and received fees from the developers for the use of their land. Today, Braun is opposing a huge new pipeline that would transport carbon dioxide across five Midwestern states — Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota. But this time she finds herself in an unusual alliance with white landowners who are also against the pipeline, like Ed Fischbach, a South Dakota farmer.

Small-Town Residents Get Creative In Black Hills Uranium Mine Fight

August 31, 2022 Talli Nauman, Resilience. Resist! Environment, Indigenous Rights, South Dakota, Uranium

Hot Springs, South Dakota – A budding national reputation for healing mineral waters spawned this town of 3,400 in the early 1900s. Appreciative of that source, today’s area residents have fended off proposed radioactive uranium mining in the aquifers for more than four decades. This summer of 2022, they scored a breakthrough. They collected enough signatures to obtain a ballot measure that would declare the activity a “nuisance” in Fall River County. If the measure passes in the county’s Nov. 8 general election, then an interested party could take legal action to prevent or stop the nuisance, according to South Dakota law.

Complaint Filed On South Dakota Senators For Unlawful Activity

May 31, 2022 Charmaine White Face, Popular Resistance. Resist! Health Care, Indian Health Service, Senators, South Dakota

Rapid City, SD - A complaint has been filed with the Senate Ethics Committee in Washington, DC, regarding unlawful activity by both South Dakota Senators, Mike Rounds (R-SD) and John Thune (R-SD). Electronically filed with the Senate Ethics Committee on May 26, 2022, the Complaint was sent in by four former patients of the Sioux San Indian Health Service Health Facility (Sioux San) in Rapid City. The complaint states that both Senators pressured the Indian Health Service (IHS) to enter into an unlawful contract for the administration of the Sioux San IHS Health Facility with one of their own non-profit corporations, a data collection agency called the Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board (GPTLHB). The corporation changed the historic name of the Sioux San to the Oyate Health Center (OHC).

Grand Gateway Hotel Refuses Service To Native Americans

March 27, 2022 NDN Collective. Resist! Indigenous Rights, Racism, South Dakota

On Wednesday, March 23, NDN Collective filed a federal civil rights class action lawsuit against the Grand Gateway Hotel for refusing service to Native Americans in Rapid City. This lawsuit comes after the owner of the hotel, Connie Uhre, made public statements on social media stating her intent to ban all Native Americans from the hotel and the attached Cheers Lounge after a shooting occurred at the hotel over the weekend involving Native Americans, stating she can’t tell “who is a bad Native or a good Native.” Following the statements made by Uhre, Native American staff of the NDN Collective were denied rooms at the Grand Gateway Hotel on two separate occasions. NDN Collective Director of Racial Equity Sunny Red Bear attempted to book a room on Monday, March 21, and was told by the front desk attendant that the Grand Gateway Hotel does not allow local residents to book hotel rooms, stating that this was a policy due to the fact that rooms allegedly were getting “trashed” by locals.

Native Groups File Federal Lawsuit Against South Dakota Hotel

March 25, 2022 Native News Online. Resist! Indigenous Rights, Racism, South Dakota

Hundreds of protestors marched in the streets and gathered outside a South Dakota courthouse Wednesday to celebrate the filing of a lawsuit against a Rapid City hotel whose owner said she would ban Native Americans from property. The demonstrators marched through downtown Rapid City with drums and carried tribal flags and banners, including one that read “We will not tolerate racist policies and practices.” The march was organized by three advocacy organizations — NDN Collective, the American Indian Movement and Cheyenne River Grassroots Collective — that also filed the federal civil rights class action lawsuit. Attorney Brendan Johnson, a former U.S. attorney who represents the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit, said the “rest of the world” needs to know what’s going on in Rapid City, according to a report by the Associated Press.

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