Association. Thank you for coming out. I am an enrolled member but im originally from minnesota and the american in movement and it is my honor to welcome you all, thankt you for out these requirements but most importantly we have leonard throughout the book which covers the American Indian movement and the judge for the United Nations and featured in the book probably and former Federal District court judge so cute for coming out and ill pass it on to the panelists. [applause] i want to say thank you. 1997le and found his is and it went on for quite a while. The experience started like this. My husband and a turk, that he heard the story about someone called leonard and thats all i knew. I like to keep the piece of paper. He said i dont think you are aware of what it takes and i thought that was interesting. If you want to hear the story, you will get people to listen. We did come in and is a wonderful book and they came from canada and the editor so it was a a wonderful panel and a lt happened. The rules are sometimes arbitrary and allow a powwow and no one can come in on this so they didnt qualify for that, they were qualified to go into the powwow. Being told most of the time nobody went to the front door butgo because powwow was going , you could hear it all through. They went through the whole structure. It was very moving and important and i remember we were told dont ask what they are here for, you dont like the answer and it started and he looked young enough and i said are you . Answered i know, i get out in six months but i didnt think id be able to make it, ive been here 20 years. I heard the drum and realized im going to be okay. That changed everything. This is very important so he came on and calls back and forth and they had to live through and frequently you are here how is your day . He would say how is your day . That kind of conversation. He worked with doctors in the area and noticed it that he was even eating all court and got migrants from this condition. They were able to get it and he could come to him and many people had worked this. It was not really from this but they were living withan this and made the exception and heard the medical record and he will come down with all to not leak ingersoll he writes appropriate letters and he says i have a letter to read you. He said he didnt have any medical issues and hasnt complained and is not correct so i remember he was kind of dumbfounded like how to get misinformation to a congressman . He was like its okay. He says going too take another congressman with me overnight and it put us on a whole other claim. Its going to take time and a lot of people tirelessly and it is important they focused on what was interesting to me in the community lost. Its hard to get and i remember he was working, at the time and he never complained about to me. He said they are putting me down there since i was nine years old, how about courtesy . What is the solitary when youre nine years old is for the first time and we started to go from there. Over many stories will witness and you could tell native people would come from all over the country and they were there to walk them and they got out and even the judge was a can you do . People cooperated and they would come up and say you got to move the end he already prepared, they had a movement. The started and had people of under there and complied and they talked about the tonight and there was a Human Element nine years ago and i said im interested in all the days that happened before. I want to know the humanity, the people you love and i interviewed those over the period of 20 years. And he introduced it in a common reminder he thought of it and it was wonderful. She survived and said something recently, i was interested in that to bring healing symposium as they would survive for 18 months and was helping others and it was hard for her. She said she is a survivor, why is she onhe the screen, why isnt she here with us . She survived it, thats only person i want to listen to. I want to say well, third chapter and the pickup truck and 1973 but she didnt just survive, she thrived so making a difference today the survivor and the truck driver. Agreed to carry on. I was born on the reservations and of course to wisconsin and inter culture and i talked about it and said i wanted everything that went with it and i was 18 years old and we started the chapter like six months and we started a movement for sobriety and i felt in order to survive, you have to be sober. I never drink in my life and everett buddy in our community did so when they came, i thought it was a good thing, they were to stand up and demand who we are s because they were having o fight with them at the time so immunities would come official, its black andnd white, we are t involved in this and they are not going to dictate to us as members and the first and will will they were in the put this up and it was the native reservation and my sisterinlaw started and they were people recovering and then people would come by and i know they were appreciative of us but i consider it all of our land. They walked on this earth and they were walking our people no matter what anybody goes, it still belongs to the people. The other thing i want to say, people extend into other countries in canada, mexico and other countries because we never considered that. I was explaining that they moved in with me and my family and the struggle. Sometimeswa more than my people back home, they said they come hard and whatever it is that it takes but they really want to live up to that. He said it seems so different because i see people walking and they keep their heads down and they dont look at each other and they dont acknowledge each other. People across the street if they see another one they shake their hand and say good to see you. I really appreciated that and i felt what happened to us, our thinking about it and said is one good thing the government did because if they are in differentt areas and we found each other and thats how movement is made up different nations and people coming together cysts. Theres one thought, one mind and one spirit and with the cup to each other and what i love is the cultural part and i remember so many times the tribal conflict, it is to move this country and get people to move but i understand we are fighting against. Igi remember families and they want to take this and adopted this and she was kicked out and was adopted by a family and they called me and said shes like her mother, she likes to earn the power and stuff like that and isnt that enough . I said you know, because when she was ay, baby, she starts thinking on heryo own and you dont want her around. I dont think she did but with this girl she did so this was in a basket owned to the baby home and got her cleaned up and theyre going to get and says we are not keepingng her so i let them think what he wanted to they came into the office and they said they came to get her, cannot taking her. The 13th of april that will open, you can take your white babies in your collectivities and you do that but youre not taking the nativee babies so thy all had commercials in it. And they said what aboutoo her mother . I said we will take her also pure appear we invited her to live with the spirit if you want to be with us you are just like one of ours. You you are just a young girlu can come live with us. She had a different lifestyle and was gone for three years and then got her stuff together and came back andnd she got her baby but i remember going up, chips family and i was talking to the elder and telling him that i had this baby elicited the mother said i should adopt her. He told me you know, you dont have to do that here we dont have that paper to take care of that baby. We dont need a piece of paper. He said whatever you have to be for herbert if you have to be her mom not be her mom or her at her grandma, or whatever it is. Take care of that baby. The creator is really going to bless you because that baby is innocent and you were doing the best you can for her. He said dont rely on white mans paper. He said someday the mom might come back and really want that baby. He said they will have that bond again. Again i told her i would adopt her, i would take care of her as longest she wanted me to but when she is ready to be the mom, and be the object she did so i was happy with that. Are part of the American Movement has always been for the culture and the traditional way of life. Thats what we have. I moved back to my reservation in 1982 from milwaukee, moved back to oneida. Where the first sweat lodge on that reservation and like member people in the Community Say what you guys do with the sweat lodge in your backyard . I said we sweat. We put the first tb up on that reservation and it still is there in my backyard. We have a teepee meeting almost every weekend. Theres always ceremonies going on and im really thankful for this way o of life and im realy grateful to the American Movement and the guys that were Strong Enough to stand up and say were not going, would it take this anymore. Oi were going to stand up for treaty rights, stand up for all of that. E i can remember some of the tribal chairman were teasing these guys in leadership and there was a when you go to d. C. Why do you carry around briefcases . I remember her telling her brother who was a tribal chairman at the time, we follow the tribal chairman about an he said you guys get drunk and come all over the treaty spirit we picked them up we drive them off and we honor them. I remember what a big impact that started to have. I dont know what, maybe you have Something Else want to talk about. Its been ragged way to get here. Its been hard but its been such a beautiful way of life. We had a lot of the leadership come to milwaukee to join us at the coast guard station and helpless but i know leonard came down to when we had the Indian Community school and work with me for a while when we had our alcohol program. I know the guys that thought they were bigey bad boys out on the streets came in and put at the gym, actually a rain and taught the younger guys how to defend themselves, how to box beer they had a boxing ring inner center and everything in there, the culture and my adopted brother rufusru hi hawk, and there and teach beadwork and do things like that with someone come in and teach the language andt we had kids that came in after school and would come in at always cooked for them and then we started ordering meals so they could come in and have a place to be warm and of food to eat. The one particular incident i remember as we were trying, there was a big blizzard and the streets were shutting down the buses were not running anymore in the water because the streets were so bad. So these little kids come one of our counselors took them home and drop them off at him and hes coming back to the center. He didnt make it there before the scheduled meeting back to our center. When he came back they were all terribly little baby with him and he said nobody was an older they were cold and he wantedo come in so we kept the center open and said we cant i guess if we are that, got placed in the storm, then thats what we needed to be and thats what we were. We try to take care of the young people. We were especially interested in youth because of wanted to get to bed before alcohol or anybody els did. And now were on that same path trying to deal with heroin and all the issues that come with that on the reservation because it is devastating our people. I fed 2twomac grandchildren twt died of an overdose in the past two years in the past week ive known him two deaths of young people from everyone overdosing. Weve been trying to work real hard because my goal is to try to get a sober house. Because we would like to build a Community Around that sober house where we can have sweats, the teepees, we can advance income everything we want in their for our young people to learn from, maybe even have someone teaching the language and doing all of it because a lot of these people that are addicts are coming back into the community and their back with the same friends they left with. Its only a matter of time and they are falling back into the same way of life. So i understand what it is that they have to leave her friends behind, so calledot friends, better leave them behind and cut all those dies, whether its family or whoever it is, they got to let go at it until they can get their heads clean. From talking to some of the people that work in that field, i understand it takes at least two years to get the brain back to thinking they can be happy again. Ig because they are looking for that hieroglyphic out with that first shot ofwa heroin or whater it was, the drugs they are using, looking to chasing that high and aret. Not going to fin. Have to keepye them clean for at least two years before the brain recovers from theso damage that was done to it. So thats our goal. Thats the path we are on. Thank you, dorothy. Thats wonderful to listen to you tell those stories. Brings back some memories of some of the things were able to look at the oneida reservation. Dorothy had some tribunals. What was the childrens tribunal that dealt with boarding School Survivors for came and gave theirr testimonies. It was a powerful moment when leonard wrote in his testimony from the boarding school, and admitted dorothy read it with all, i think with the bell courts were there, dennis banks of course, yeah, john thomas. The minute that the testimony was red that leonard wrote, dennis banks jumped up and took the mic and started telling his pier and something occurred to me for the first time that particular day, want to say that was 2013. All the leadership had seen boarding school. Even the same boarding school most of thehe time. And then it was even mentioned from some of dick wilsons family that he had gone to boarding school. I started thinking wow, this historical, is raving through with relocation and termination. Another interesting dynamic was leonard was at Turtle Mountain of course, his place of his birth, and it was under termination, admin came to help in milwaukee, the menomonie were under termination. He went out to his aunts to live in the portland area and the klamath were under termination. Its not an imagined thread. I can imagine walkaround hearing they want to. Terminate us they dont want us to our cultural identity, inas their case and hw that would affect everything. Thats life longer and i would try to explain to my friends and family, i see a portrait of abe lincoln i think wow, the hero, the emancipator. You feel all warm and fuzzy you hear leonard tell a story about the mankato peer kind of weird well yesterday, like wow you dont see that hero. You see a mass hanging. And where was the constitution when that was going on . You hear eisenhower talk about relocation programs, started most of the assimilation programs and made the statement by the end of my administration the only indian youll see is in a museum thats like, wow. And yet like you say, turned it into a positive by relocating many nations were in one place and voices could rise up together and the movement became that voice. The mechanic thats in seattle, i dont know if youre familiar with the article that was in the seattle times, but opens with Leonard Peltier the businessman because the article is about a t young reporter interviewing this young businessman and Business Owner whos opened up two base and as his mechanic shop, and is doing really well. Hes prospering. Herb palace was on the union line with 2500 men and had a great job and a home with dorothy and a beautiful family. They were prospering. They are not just hanging out. Its like they put a lot of wonderful situations on the side and took onca a great risk becae they believed in that protection of cultural identity, worldwide. Can i Say Something . Yes please. I just want to mention about the terminating the tribes that that was going to happen under nixon, was going to happen to all of the tribes because of the friendship that herb developed with Brad Patterson i remember her sitting in brads office in d. C. And brad, there tell you about something and brett asked and he saidor if i could do one thing for you right now, her what is at . He said i want you to reverse that termination of the nominees have gone from being one of the richest reservation in the state of wisconsin to be the poorest county peer they turned them into a county at the airport. He said you need to enter that in turn that around and within six months they ended that termination and they returned the reservation status or the tribal status back to the menomonie reservation. Not too many people know about that but i can remember i was pregnant with geronimo and we were walking the streets protesting the people that s wee selling off the menomonie reservation, selling land to people who would, by like lots and to put put them intoi understand that the menomonie have given the land owners that are sitting on the land i think they have their places and they said they were ending all of those leases and that they were not going to renew them so this is all going to be back to menomonie land appeared menomonie territory to her there i was really happy to hear that but also they stop terminating other reservations, to peer with the land return in oklahoma that was really great to hear about that but i think the first we talked about this the first land return was when the returned it to herb with the coast guard station k and put it in our name. Herb had defied the tribe to take ownership of that line so it could be in tribal status, and went tod all of the tribes n wisconsin asking them to take ownership, take the title for that land down there and nobody wanted to do it so finally the last try the winter with a pot of wannabes and ask them they would take a chance without. Pottawatomies dad and the rest is history. They are millionaires and think the big article in one of our milwaukee papers about it talking about how it was a what do they call it . Turned it into a goldmine. Occupation became common at that article also said something that i thought was very important if you dont like mentioning it. What a difference when theres an advocate with an activist, and that unique case was a peaceful understanding, support. A lot when into it at a lot of hard work went into it to develop the Indian School is thriving on 17 acres, beautiful. But the advocate and activist working together, that went on until of course wounded knee and other things that begin to escalate and window policies that can escalate that, termination, relocation, boarding school, all of a sudden the reversal starts to happen slowly but theyn did begin to happen. When you dont have the advocate they can go the other way. Not that that it was a ut happened in milwaukee is still progressing to this day, still thriving to this day, and landed back in, beautiful words. That was the outcome there. There may be people im sure there are people will break away briefly from this program to keep our over 40 your commitment to covering congress to retake your life now to the floor of the u. S. Senate where lawmakers are holding what we believe will be a brief session today. No votes are expected