{"id":15384,"date":"2021-04-09T11:57:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T16:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/native-teens-take-black-snake-to-d-c-streets\/"},"modified":"2021-04-09T11:57:46","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T16:57:46","slug":"native-teens-take-black-snake-to-d-c-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/native-teens-take-black-snake-to-d-c-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"Native teens take \u2018black snake\u2019 to D.C. streets"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/div>
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Love Hopkins, 11, of White Shield, N.D., puts a finishing stab on the 300-foot effigy of a black snake as tribal youth returned to the U.S, capital five years after their first relay run to demand tribal consultation in petroleum pipeline and other megaproject permitting. (Photo Courtesy)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By Talli Nauman, Native Sun News Today Health & Environment Editor<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Love Hopkins, 11, of White Shield, N.D., and Silas Neeland, 13, of Rice Lake, Minn., were among scores of Native youth water protectors from the Upper Midwest who pounded the pavement for environmental justice in the U.S. capital April 1, launching a nationwide Week of Action.
\nThe date was the fifth anniversary of the founding of the initial grassroots spirit camp that drew others like it and unprecedented international attention to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe\u2019s lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permitting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
\nDemonstrators here converged in a rally at Corps of Engineers headquarters and planted a 300-foot-long effigy of a black snake representing a pipeline. They presented Corps personnel with boxes of petitions to stop DAPL and Line 3. Then, to the sound of a drum song, they staged a die-in by a poster saying, \u201cBiden, Army Corps, your inaction, our death.\u201d
\nWith the mantra \u201cWe\u2019re giving the fossil fuel snake back to D.C.,\u201d they later smashed the snake likeness to bits outside the White House.
\nTheir underlying mission: Remind President Joe Biden that their communities\u2019 campaign support for his recent election stemmed from hopes of his Administration\u2019s help in requiring free, prior, and informed consent for pipelines and other megaproject developments in ancestral treaty territory.
\nInterviewed during the event, Hopkins recalled taking part in a similar convergence at the capital in 2016, when youth relay runners travelled here from the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux Indian reservations to raise awareness of the DAPL project\u2019s threat to their drinking water intake just downstream from the pipeline\u2019s Missouri River crossing.
\n\u201cI was 6 years old whenever we came here,\u201d Hopkins said, noting that a number of the runners in the relay also took part in this latest initiative. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel good to be here protesting for our water, because we shouldn\u2019t have to live in fear,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have to fight for our own water. We should be able to have drinking water whenever we want because this land is ours and those guys over there took it away from us,\u201d she said, with a nod to the abundance of federal officials and symbols in the capital.
\nNeeland, who recalled five years of involvement in resistance to the Enbridge Line 3 construction across the Upper Mississippi River, mused, \u201cYou know, people complain about paying $7 for gas. We\u2019ll be paying $7 for a bottle of water if we don\u2019t stop this pipeline.\u201d
\nThe first camper at the Sacred Stone Camp near the DAPL route, Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Joye Braun sent a message that her daughter Morgan Brings Plenty read at the rally. \u201cWe will not stop till DAPL is shut down and all these pipelines, like Line 3, are stopped. I look forward to the time when the injustices are righted,\u201d the message said.
\nIn it, Braun thanked the youth and asked participants to remember the sacrifices made during the years of Native frontline resistance to the pipelines, including Keystone XL, Enbridge\u2019s Mountain Valley, and its Line 5.
\nBraun is among grassroots organizers asking pipeline opponents to contact Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation Tribal Business Chair Mark Fox about his campaign plank \u201cWater is more valuable than oil,\u201d in the wake of his March 23 letter asking the Corps for \u201cimmediate consultation on the alternatives being considered regarding continuity of operations of operations of the Dakota Access Pipeline\u201d while the permit is under court-ordered review.
\nFox notes in the letter that more than half of the oil produced on his Ft. Berthold Indian Reservation goes to market via DAPL, making the Three Affiliated Tribes \u201cunique among other tribes in our region.\u201d
\nCheyenne River Sioux tribal members Oscar High Elk and Jasilyn Charger, who are facing fines and incarceration for an alleged felony and misdemeanors during Keystone XL resistance, took the podium after Brings Plenty.
\n\u201cI am here today to ask the President, Biden, for a pardon on my charges, my false bogus charges, and I encourage you all to sign the petition to drop the charges,\u201d High Elk said.
\nCharger, who said she created The 7th Defenders project for environmental conservation \u201cbecause youth were not being heard,\u201d pronounced, \u201cThese are all black snakes. These are all affecting our people. We will stand together as relatives, as one. This is our land. We cannot trespass on stolen land.\u201d
\nStanding Rock Youth Council hosted the event with help from the Indigenous Environmental Network and support from the Great Plains Action Society. Emphasizing the importance of reducing energy use and dependence on petroleum products, they posited:
\n\u201cClimate chaos is here. We cannot wait, we need [Biden] to #BuildBackFossilFree. Host a #BuildBackFossilFree solidarity action before the 9th. \u201cIf the President is serious about addressing the climate crisis, he must keep fossil fuels in the ground and invest in the communities that have borne the brunt of pollution and climate disaster,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.net<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The post Native teens take \u2018black snake\u2019 to D.C. streets<\/a> first appeared on Native Sun News Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>

Visit Original Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/div>

Love Hopkins, 11, of White Shield, N.D., puts a finishing stab on the 300-foot effigy of a black snake as tribal youth returned to the U.S, capital five years after their first relay run to demand tribal consultation in petroleum pipeline and other megaproject permitting. (Photo Courtesy) By Talli Nauman, <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a>
Shared by Native Sun News Today<\/a> April 9, 2021<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1541,"featured_media":15385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5627],"tags":[10105,3222,6657],"class_list":["post-15384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resource-directory-blog","tag-archive","tag-news","tag-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}