In this special Labor Day episode, we talk to LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota, and one of the founders of the resistance camps where the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline (#NoDAPL) took place from the spring of 2016 to the winter of 2017. LaDonna is a Native historian who was thrust by history into the role of an activist—her work and bravery have brought hope and courage to people all around the globe. She’s an incredible human being and a masterful storyteller. We talk about LaDonna’s life, about the struggles of Native tribes, and about the ongoing, violent erasure of the lives and history of Native people in this country, on this continent, and around the world. We talk about the care and wisdom and protection LaDonna always got from her grandmother, and we talk about LaDonna’s memories of being torn away from her family and put in foster care as a child. We talk about how she was always made to feel different, an outsider on land that was stolen from her and her ancestors. And we talk about returning home to the Reservation, about learning how to live with the land, and about being a survivor.

 

Additional links/info below...

• **Sacred Stone Village Facebook page  
• **Sacred Stone Camp Facebook page 
• Wisdom of the Elders, “Turtle Island Storyteller, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard” 
• Democracy Now!, “Standing Rock Sioux Historian: Dakota Access Co. Attack Comes on Anniversary of Whitestone Massacre” 
• Democracy Now!, “‘Is This America?’ Co-Founder of Sacred Stone Camp Recalls Dog Attack on Native Americans” 
• Water Protector Legal Collective
• #NoDAPL Archive 
• Standing Rock Syllabus 

 

For more info about the nationwide Prison Strike... 

• incarceratedworkers.org 
• Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, “Prison Strike Organizer Warns: Brutal Prison Conditions Risk ‘Another Attica’” 
• Ed Pilkington, The Guardian, “US Inmates Stage Nationwide Prison Labor Strike Over ‘Modern Slavery’” 

 

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive)

- Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall" - King Kong Ding Dong, “Distant Drums”