Winner of the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year AwardA timely and
comprehensive look at the protests at Standing Rock.
**Winner of the 2019 Foreword INDIES "Book of the Year" Award
**
Viewing Mni Wiconi (Sacred Water of Life) and the No Dakota Access
Movement as an isolated happening without acknowledging historical,
cultural, and systematic circumstances leading up to it makes no sense.
We cannot erase this past nor change it. In order to move forward in a
better way, however, we must acknowledge the truthful foundation and
recurring practices complicating what to some feel like isolated
incidences. The pervasive and growing presence of extreme economic
inequality in America is a worsening condition. Few situations reveal
this inequality more than the conditions that Native Americans live
under within their own homeland.
This book raises awareness of Water Protectors for those who were not at
Standing Rock and honoring those who were, through experiences at the
Oceti Sakowin Camp, the indigenous-led resistance movement by the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the Energy Transfer Partners project
to build the Dakota Access Pipeline on sacred land. The goal is to
acknowledge and better understand the dedication of the Water
Protectors, as they chose to be called, standing up for the health of
Mni Wiconi and so many other related causes for the seven generations
representing the past, present, and future health of all.
People throughout the world, including members from between 240-300
indigenous tribes, were attracted to the cause and came to Standing Rock
in full support of the protests. Even American military veterans,
distressed by what they saw, came by the thousands determined to stand
between the Water Protectors and police in defense of the rights for
non-violent expression of resistance.
The book's powerful photographs by John Willis are complimented by many
Lakota voices and those of other allies through interviews, poetry,
Lakota artwork, music through a downloadable CD, and historical
ephemera. And essays by Terry Tempest Williams and Shaunna Oteka-McCovey
provide new insights into age-old problems facing native people.
