Black Panther Park opens in Seattle. It has been in the works for 8 years now. TL:dR version: Its all about building community

https://southseattleemerald.org/community/2026/03/16/murals-and-memories-new-black-panther-park-opens-in-skyway

#Seattle #Skyway #BlackPanther #BlackPanthers #AIM #AmericanIndianMovement #Justice #Community

Today in Labor History February 27, 1973: 300 Oglala Sioux activists from the American Indian Movement (AIM) liberated and occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota. This was the site of the infamous Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890). They occupied the site to protest a campaign of terror against them by the FBI, and corrupt tribal officials, and the tribal thugs knowns as GOONs (Guardians of Oglala Nation). The occupation lasted over 2 months, before being quashed by the U.S. government. 3 Native activists were killed. Dennis Banks and Russell Means were indicted for their roll, but charges were later dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.

#aim #indigenous #WoundedKnee #massacre #genocide #occupation #fbi #oglala #sioux #workingclass #LaborHistory #native #terrorism #AmericanIndianMovement

Indigenous-Led Collectives Are Keeping Minnesotan Communities Safe From ICE

https://murica.website/2026/02/indigenous-led-collectives-are-keeping-minnesotan-communities-safe-from-ice/

Leonard Peltier Speaks Out While Living Under House Arrest

https://murica.website/2026/01/leonard-peltier-speaks-out-while-living-under-house-arrest/

Today in Labor History November 26, 1970: Indigenous activists from the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied Plymouth Rock in a National Day of Mourning. The protest was sparked when officials from the state of Massachusetts censored a speech to be given by Frank James (Wamsutta), an Aquinnah Wampanoag, on the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. Their rationale was that “anything inflammatory would have been out of place” on this “celebration of brotherhood.” In his speech, James talked about atrocities like the loss of native languages, culture, land, and life.

“Our spirit refuses to die. . . We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we’ll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us. We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail. You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We, the Wampanoags, will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.”

Indigenous people have continued to commemorate the National Day of Mourning in Plymouth every year since 1970. In 1997, police attacked the peaceful demonstration with pepper spray and arrested 25 protestors.

You can read the James’s full speech here: http://www.blackcommentator.com/207/207_day_of_mourning_wampsutta_pf.html

#workingclass #LaborHistory #indigenous #AmericanIndianMovement #AIM #genocide #racism #freespeech #censorship

The Case for Returning U.S. #PublicLands to #IndigenousPeople

by Joe Whittle, Mar 6, 2025

"Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has fired thousands of federal workers across multiple public lands agencies, including the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The effects of this are vast: It’s going to have a profoundly negative impact on the environment and the way millions of Americans enjoy public lands, cause immeasurable harm to America’s wildest places, and devastate the economies built around them.

"After serving 12 years as a backcountry wilderness ranger for the U.S. Forest Service, I'm convinced there is an alternative: the U.S. needs to return its public lands to Native Americans. In fact, I believe that might be the only way to save our parks and forests from corporate privatization and destruction, as well as preserve public access to them. If the U.S. won’t properly care for its public lands, why not return them to their original caretakers?

"This isn’t a new idea. #NativeAmericans argued that treaty law required
'abandoned' federal land to be returned to tribes during the occupation of #Alcatraz Island by the #AmericanIndianMovement in the 1960s. In more recent years, the #LandbackMovement has given rise to increased calls for the return of territorial land to #IndigenousNations, and the return of land management based in #TraditionalEcologicalKnowledge—expertise gathered from thousands of years of having deep relationships with specific environments. There’s a strong legal argument that land return is constitutionally required as damages due for hundreds of treaty violations. However, there’s also a lot of data showing Indigenous land management is more ecologically sound than government or industrially managed land. For instance, #ProjectDrawdown, a global leader in science-based #ClimateChange solutions, estimates that returning 1,000 million hectares of land to Indigenous tenureship by 2050 would sequester over 12 gigatons of carbon dioxide."

Read more:
https://time.com/7262838/us-public-lands-return-indigenous-people/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/QnF32

#LandBack #AIM #StolenLand #StolenLands #NationalParks #TEK #ClimateCrisis #ClimateSolutions #IndigenousPeoples #IndigenousPeoplesMonth #GiveItBack #Stewardship #LandIsLife #WaterIsLife #AlcatrazIsland #Resistance #USPol #TrumpSucks #RespectTheTreaties

Today in Labor History November 20, 1969: Indigenous activists seized control of Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay, and occupied it until the U.S. Government ousted them 19 months later. The protest group called themselves Indians of All Tribes. They took the island because, according to the Treaty of Fort Laramie, all retired, abandoned or out-of-use federal land was to be returned to the Indians who once occupied it. Since Alcatraz had been closed for over 6 years, and the island had been declared surplus federal property, indigenous activists believed that the island was theirs to reclaim. One of the organizers of the Occupation, Richard Oakes, was shot to death in 1972 by a white supremacist YMCA counselor in Sonoma, CA. And the American Indian Movement (AIM) was targeted by the FBI’s COINTELLPRO. Other organizers of the Alcatraz Occupation included LaNada Means, head of the Native American Student Organization at the University of California, Berkeley, and poet, musician and songwriter John Trudell. At the height of the movement, there were 400 people occupying the island. They set up a school, daycare center, and health clinic. Trudell began making daily radio broadcasts from the island. The longshore union rented space on Pier 40 to coordinate the delivery of supplies. Grace Thorpe, daughter of Olympic champion and multisport indigenous superstar, Jim Thorpe, helped convince celebrities like Jane Fonda, Anthony Quinn, Marlon Brando, Jonathan Winters, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Dick Gregory, to visit the island and show their support, bringing national and international attention to the cause. AIM also formed coalitions with the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets, who help run security on the island.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #alcatraz #occupation #nativeamerican #indigenous #aim #StolenLand #solidarity #blackpanthers #brownberets #americanindianmovement #jimthorpe #johntrudell #landback