My namee is grant. Happy to represent georgetown native americans lost in association. A big thank you to her speakers today for coming up. Personally ive a member of the ogallala in south dakota and im originally from minneapolis minnesota to the birthplace of American Indian movement and its my honor today to welcome you all and first of all thankll you for filling out various requirements and everything. Most importantly to our three speakers today we have sheron wyantleonard and Dorothy Ninham former judge for the United Nation and features prominently in the book in less that not least kevin sharp former Federal District court judge and attorneys so without any further ado thank you for coming up and we will move on to our panelists. [applause] i want to say thank you for giving your time for your meet unique combination of stories. In 1997 i talk to leonard at the surf times. He had a cherokee friend. It went on for quite a wild. I would say almost a year before i got to meet with him. The experience for me started like h this. My husband also an attorney came home one day and said i heard a story about someone who was called blender thats how little i knew. He immediately said Leonard Peltier and you have heard of him. You know him. I dont think he graduated from law school in american you arent aware. I thought that was interesting. He said if you want to get people to listen to the story behind find the law schools anywhere in america and you will get people to listen. So we went to Georgetown University back in that day. We did come in and masterson came and he wrote horse a wonderful book. And the minister of justice came up away from canada. Bills director and his wife rose they were big supporters. The editor of prison right also important. It was a wonderful panel and their was a long time ago. A lot happened. I was told to give in to meet Leonard Peltier in leavenworth but its not likely to happen. The rules were sometimes arbitrary and there were lot of prison powwows that someone organized inn pottawattamie. They said we could come to the powwow and how many people are were not on list so interestingly enough and qualify for that list but i qualify to go into themb powwow. I remember going through the underground at this big and being v told most of the time visitors never see past the front door and because the powwow was going on in the gymnasium you could hear d the drum paul through the tunnels and never got to really see the whole structure. Very powerful very important. I remember they said donetsk anyone how long they have been here for what they are here for you wont like the answer. The drum started in the fairly young man he looked young enough to be my son started clearing and shaking as soon as he heard the drums. I couldnt help being a mom i said are you here for long and he answered i get out in six months. And i didnt think id be able to make it predicted here for 20 years for they heard the drum and i realized im going to be okay. And that changed everything. I just thought this is very important. So it went on for quite a wild backandforth and got to know leonard pretty well. He had lived through your day and frequently he would say and how sure day the same and what went on in your day and what did you have for dinner and that kind of conversation. Jim and i my husband not only being an attorney he worked with doctors in the atlanta area at the university and when he visited the was frozen open. He was eating awkwardly. He suffered from migraines from this condition many people worked on getting him the proper surgeon to correct it. Doctors from mayo clinic would give them and the crick surgery and many people worked on this for period of years trying to accomplish it. The congressman john lewis a local amnesty representative of the seine lee jenkins. We went in and the congressman said while hes not from my district butut he had a granddaughter that was living in a Charity Family and he he heard about this medical record. He could come down with stomach cancers all kindste of testimony foriv people who tried to help. So he wrote the appropriate letter and a couple of weeks and he said i have a letter to review. Theth letter said mr. Pelletier didnt have any medical issues and the information was not correct. I remember his opened and he was kind of dumbfounded like how do you get misinformation to congressman . And congressman lewis comforted him like its okay. Im going to writete a letter ad say im going to go speak with him and myself and take some other congressmen with me. Overnight letter to us went to the clinic and the surgery was performed. It put us on a whole other plane like wow this is important and its not easy and its going to take some time into and to building and a lot of people again were on at all the time year in and year out. And its important that i started collecting stories from him that focused on his childhood mainly that it was interesting to me. The humanities that could get lost when its a big case because its about the rules and its hard to get in but i remember at one point he was working on prison arrivals at the time that i commented on solitary sounded so harsh and he had complained of that to me. And at that point he said it put us at ease he said they have been putting me down there since i was nine or so, how bad can it be . Nine years old. Wheres the solitary when you are in nine years old and i realized laterg he was talking about Border Patrol for the first time. We started going from there all the way through the fishing rights struggles and many stories and over period of years. You could tell people have come from all over the country and canada to be there. They pull up and arrested out school bus and got out with a basket and change their clothing. People cooperated and then there is the altar that was said on the line on the lawn and they said youve got to move that and he did not want to move it. They had argued prepared it made a permit. He said yes but you will hurt the grass. That always stood out to me like wow. The youngest environmentalist in the world. As he started with the buffalo alternative around the lawn and had people up under this 200pound they complied it was quite a sight and matheson later talked about how he decided to write his book with some of the things that he heard there. It was an extraordinary story again always the Human Element that when i met Dorothy Ninham eight or nine years ago i said sitting now im interested in all of the days that happened before things began to escalate. I want to know the humanities, the families and the people that brought to this and i interviewed 15 members of the american and in 20 years and canada stands out. When it started saying we have got to do sourcing and wow he introduced us and i am reminded of the story so much it was leonards fall, he thought of it. With that id like to pass it to dorothy and say she survived. We had a symposium to fight heroin on the reservation and its always been an interest of hers. There is a a big screen at the symposium. This is a young girl who said she had survived heroin trade two months and she become a counselor and she was helping others. It looked like it was still very hard for her and she leaned over to mee and she said, shes a survivor. Why is she up on the screen and why didnt she here with us and wise why such inner circle . She survived this and the only person i want to listen to is a survivor in the room. And i thought i was going to introduce during the soon and i wanted to say wow dorothy survived the Indian Movement and went to wounded knee in 1970 but she didnt just survive. Her granddaughter reminded me just because she said she thrived. So much happened with the occupations and the tension that was brought and its clearly making a difference today. The survivor and the driver, Dorothy Ninham. I am dorothy from the milwaukee in chapter and one of the reasons we started the American Movement in milwaukee is i remember one weekend when they came to milwaukee and they were talking aboutou the movemet all my life i had been raised and i wasnt culturally raised. I was born on the reservation in the course the own night at went back to wisconsin so we werent into culture and we didnt bring any of that with us. I talked to s sharon about it ad i said theres something in our dna that does knows that we are different. Iith always wanted Something Different and i wanted to be who i was meant to be and not go to churches or anything like that. I wanted to be and everything that went with it so when i moved toar milwaukee and was 18 years old and i moved and married her up andnd we started the American Movement chapter after he was sober for six months and we started a movement for sobriety called the American Council and alcohol and drug abuse a cause they felt like in order to raise a family and in order to survive, we had to be civil. I never drank in my life and i never got into that kind of lifestyle and i surprise myself when iha was older that i didnt get into it because everybody in our community did. That was the only entertainment or whatever it was on the reservation. When dennis and those guys came i thought it was a really good thing that they looked after our culture. We need to join a movement thats going to stand up and demand that we be who we are because we had our defense starting schoolsls in milwaukee and they were doing desegregation of the time. They would come. They wanted to bust their kids back and forth remember herb saying this fight is blackandwhite and we are fight. D in thisnv her kids are going to go to school where we want them to go to school and they are going to dictate to us that they had to be a part of whatever he numbers are. So we were always involved in that kind of culture there and when we started up the whole program we met some people from south dakota. Right after we, started the movement he went to d. C. And met with nixons assistant of affairs in the met with him and somehow for some reason he took a likingli to herb and agreed to help us. So we have that land turned over and we put signs up that it was now a reservation. And my sister started a Community School and a Halfway House for people who are recovering. Wede boarded it off and many people come down on the weekends and everybody enjoyed it. It was right on the lake front. I know the neighborhood but that was our land and that was a part of our land and i considered at all of our land. And i said no matter wheres anybody walks on this mother earth east or west south or north im in the United States. We are walking on the bones of our people. We are allo indigenous ends on the matter where anybody goes and tries to say this is whatever land it belongs to thee people and we need to remember that and the other thing i want to say is people that extended to other countries like canada and mexico they are on the southern countries because we never considered it. We welcome each other and i think theres another thing about us and explained to sharon that i had a person from primary to the moved in with my family. He said you know sometimes i think our family here they are really trying hard to get the ceremonies whatever it is. They have really tried to live up to it andt,yo he said what ie ive noticed i can walk down the street and he said he said i see the people walking and they keep their heads down or they look in the other direction. He said they dont look at each other and they dont greet each other. They dont acknowledge each other. He said indian people will sit across the street to shake their hand and say its good to see you where all in this together. Iap appreciated that and i realy thought as much as indian people dislike the relocation happened to us i was thinking about it and i said one thing that the government did to us was create the program because it all got got all the tribes into different areas and we bonded with each other and we found each other and we were able to gather with each other in the movement is made up of all kinds of different people about to put nations coming together. As a movement to have one thought in one mind and one spirit. We look up to each other and i think thats good. I remember so many times that they go home and the consult. Say the movement is nothing but and this fits in a took those and misfits to move this country and people had to move and start fighting to the Child Welfare act, a i remember being with indian families before there was the act and i remember fighting for social workershe because thy wanted to put the babies up to social services. My mom was a 13yearold adopted girl and she was kicked out because she wanted to recognize your heritage. She was adopted by a family in indiana and they called me and they said shes just like her mother. She just wants to be and go to powwows and stuff likeke that. Once a yeart we go to a powwow and isnt that enough . I told them i said she was a novelty when she was a baby and picking on her own. You dont want to put up with it and you dont wantnd her around. If you read her own daughter would you throw her on the streets . But as a 13yearold girl, the baby was in the basket and she took the baby home and got her all cleaned up because they were coming the next day and they said they were coming to get her. They said they are taking this baby anywhere. We have our own children t to te care of and dont get too attached to her because we are not keeping her. The next day when the social worker showed up they came to her office and i asked them what they wanted and they said we came to get her. You are taking her nowhere. She is here because of your system because that 13yearold girl how many years ago. Theree was a social worker and a social worker. He can take the babies in the babies come if thats what you want you to doubt that you arent taking this baby. Soso when i was upset i could gt really loud. He said whats going on and i set the social workers think that they are taking this baby and i told themou to get out. He said you heard her cover get out. By the capture and they said what about her mother i said we will take her to and we invited her to come. You are like one of hours and you were just a young girl. She had a different lifestyle and she was gone for two years and she goter herself together d she came back and she got her baby. I remember i was talking to an elder and i told him that i had this baby and i said the mother said i should adopt her and i s. Said you know we dont have that paper to take that baby. We dont need that piece of paper. Do whatever you have to do for her. If you have to be her mom, be a mom or g grandma. Whatever it is take that baby. That baby is innocent and we are doing the best we can for her. He said some day the mom might come back and really want that baby and they will have that bond again. I told her i wouldnt adopt her, she wanted me to work she was ready to be a mom, and be that mom. So she did. I was really happy with that. Thats what the American Movement has done for the culture in the traditional way of life. I moved back to my reservation in 1982. We had the first lodge on the reservation can remember people on the committee saying oneida felt sweat and i said maybe you dont but wee do. Wait for the first tepee up on that reservation and we had a tepee meeting almost every weekend. Was always something going on and im really thankful and really grateful to the movement and the guys that were Strong Enough to stand up and say we are taking this anymore. We are going to stand up for a treaty rights and stand up for all of our rights. Many gogo to d. C. The chairmn at the time said you guys get and we picked him up and we dry them off and weth honor them. I remember what an impact that started to have. I dont know what else she wants to talk about. Its been such a beautiful way of life and we have had a lot of leadership come from milwaukee and helped us. When it came down there and we had a community they put up at jim taught the younger guys who defend themselves and had a boxing ring in the center. My brother taught him we had someone come in and teach the language and they came in after school and i always cook for them and we started ordering t meals a day could come and be warm. The one particular incident i remember there was a big blizzard and the buses werent running anymore in milwaukee because the streets weree so b. One of our counselors took them home and dropped them off at home and he was coming back to the center. When they came back they said nobody was at home. Wees said thats where we needed to be and thats where we were and we took care of the young people. But we wanted to get to them before alcohol or anybody else did and now we are on the same path with heroin all the issues that come with that on the reservation because it was benefiting our people. Ive had two grandchildren in the past two years in the past week none of two children that died from heroin. We have like to build a community where we can have teepees and dancing and everything that we want and for young people to learn and maybe even have someone teachth the language. A lot of these people that are are coming back into the community and its only a matter of time or they are back into that way of life. I understand they have to leave their friends behind this socalled friends. They have to leave them behind a cut those ties whether its family or whoever it is best to let go of it. In talking to some of the people that work in that field and a standard takes a least two years to get there bring back to thinking that they can be happy again. They are looking for that high that they got with that first shot of heroin or whatever drug ngthey were using. They are going to find it and its two years before their brain recovers. Thats the path we are on. Thank you dorothy. Thats wonderful. The memories and some things very well to learn the reservation dorothy had some tribunals in one of them was the childrens tribunal that w dealt with survivors that gave testimony. Its a powerful moment when leonard wrote in his testimony and the minotaur the reddit the bill courts were there in dennis john thomas. The minute the testimony was read that leonard wrote lender banks jumped up and took the mic and started telling him assuming you heard the news for the first time that day and i want to say 2013. I thought wow they were in the same boarding school most of the time. It was even mentioned from some of the family that