Frank Pommersheim | |
---|---|
Born | 12 December 1943 79) Queens, New York, U.S. | (age
Occupation(s) | Attorney Professor Author |
Known for | The Camden 28 |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Columbia Law School Harvard University Colgate University [1] |
Academic work | |
Discipline | American Indian Law |
Institutions | University of South Dakota School of Law |
Frank Pommersheim (born December 12,1943) is an American professor,author,and poet specializing in the field of American Indian law. Pommersheim is serving on several tribal appellate courts and serves as the Chief Justice for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals and the Rosebud Sioux Supreme Court [2] and is also notable for his involvement in The Camden 28. [3] [4]
Frank Pommersheim was born in New York City but moved to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in 1974 where he worked for 10 years before joining the University of South Dakota faculty in 1984. [1] Pommersheim graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor of Arts from Colgate University. He earned a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1968 and a MPA from Harvard University.
Pommersheim was employed as the Director of Dakota Plains Legal Service from 1980 to 1983. As a Senior Consumer Law Specialist for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs from 1971 to 1973 and as an Attorney and Volunteer Leader for the VISTA program in Alaska from 1968 to 1970. [1]
Frank Pommersheim began teaching at the University of South Dakota School of Law in 1984 where he is currently a professor specializing in American Indian law. [5] Pommersheim has also taught at the Lewis &Clark Law School,University of Tulsa College of Law,College of Law in Dublin,Ireland,Sinte Gleska University,and the University of New Mexico.
Pommersheim serves on tribal appellate courts and is currently the Chief Justice for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals as well as Associate Justice for the Rosebud Sioux Supreme Court. [1]
University of South Dakota Belbas‐Larson Award for Excellence in Teaching, [6] South Dakota Peace and Justice Center Reconciliation Award,[ citation needed ] and the John Wesley Jackson Award as the Outstanding Professor of Law. [7]
The Camden 28 were an eclectic group of anti-Vietnam War activists. The group included young students,blue-collar workers,four Catholic priests and a Protestant minister. In 1971 they planned and executed a The Camden 28 raided a Camden,New Jersey draft board and destroyed records containing Class 1-A status draft registrants. [8] Pommersheim,who was appropriately 28 at the time,was a member of this group's anti-Vietnam War activists. The group faced felony charges for their actions,but subsequently were acquitted by a jury in 1973. The high-profile trial against the activists that was seen by many as a referendum on the Vietnam War and as an example of successful use of jury nullification. [9] In 2007,PBS produced The Camden 28 (film) a documentary on the event and the events surrounding it. Howard Zinn testified at the trial and Supreme Court Justice William Brennan called the trial,"one of the great trials of the 20th century". [10]
Frank married a fellow member of the Camden 28,Anne Dunham. The couple left the East coast and lived and worked on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota for 10 years. Anne and Frank later moved to Vermillion,South Dakota. They have three children. [11] Pommersheim is personal friends with Bob Dylan and a passionate fan of folk music.
The Lakota are a Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux, they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota (Wičhíyena). Their current lands are in North and South Dakota. They speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations peoples in North America. The modern Sioux consist of two major divisions based on language divisions: the Dakota and Lakota; collectively they are known as the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. The term "Sioux" is an exonym created from a French transcription ("Nadouessioux") of the Ojibwe term "Nadowessi", and can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
Mission is a city on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in northern Todd County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 1,156 at the 2020 census.
William John Janklow was an American lawyer and politician and member of the Republican Party who holds the record for the longest tenure as Governor of South Dakota: sixteen years in office. Janklow had the third-longest gubernatorial tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history at 5,851 days.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located almost entirely within the U.S. state of South Dakota, with a small portion in Nebraska. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was created by the Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888. in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border. Today it consists of 3,468.85 sq mi (8,984 km2) of land area and is one of the largest reservations in the United States.
Lakota, also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Western Dakota, and is one of the three major varieties of the Sioux language.
The Brulé are one of the seven branches or bands of the Teton (Titonwan) Lakota American Indian people. They are known as Sičhą́ǧu Oyáte —Sicangu Oyate—, Sicangu Lakota, or "Burnt Thighs Nation". Learning the meaning of their name, the French called them the Brûlé. The name may have derived from an incident where they were fleeing through a grass fire on the plains.
The Great Sioux Reservation initially set aside land west of the Missouri River in South Dakota and Nebraska for the use of the Lakota Sioux, who had dominated this territory. The reservation was established in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. It included all of present-day western South Dakota and modern Boyd County, Nebraska. This area was established by the United States as a reservation for the Teton Sioux, also known as the Lakota: the seven western bands of the "Seven Council Fires".
The Rosebud Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in South Dakota, United States. It is the home of the federally recognized Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who are Sicangu, a band of Lakota people. The Lakota name Sicangu Oyate translates as the "Burnt Thigh Nation", also known by the French term, the Brulé Sioux.
Spotted Tail was a Sichangu Lakota tribal chief. Famed as a great warrior since his youth, warring on Ute, Pawnee and Absaroke (“Crow”), and having taken a leading part in the Grattan Massacre, he led his warriors in the Colorado and Platte River uprising after the massacre performed by John M. Chivington's Colorado Volunteers of the peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho camping on Sand Creek, but declined to participate in Red Cloud's War.
Joseph M. Marshall III son of Joseph Nelson Marshall Sr. and Hazel Lorraine Two Hawk-Marshall, is a historian, writer, teacher, craftsman, administrator, actor, and public speaker. He was a founding board member in 1971 of Sinte Gleska University, the tribal college at the Rosebud Indian Reservation.
The University of South Dakota School of Law also known as University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law or USD Law in Vermillion, South Dakota, United States, is a professional school of the University of South Dakota and the only law school in the state of South Dakota. Established in 1901, by U.S. Ambassador Bartlett Tripp and U.S. Senator Thomas Sterling. The law school is home to approximately 168 students and has more than 3,000 alumni. With 168 J.D. candidates, it is currently the second-smallest law school and smallest public law school student population among the American Bar Association accredited law schools.
The Lower Brulé Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation that belongs to the Lower Brulé Lakota Tribe. It is located on the west bank of the Missouri River in Lyman and Stanley counties in central South Dakota in the United States. It is adjacent to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation on the east bank of the river. The Kul Wicasa Oyate, the Lower Brulé Sioux, are members of the Sicangu, one of the bands of the Lakota Tribe. Tribal headquarters is in Lower Brule.
Sinte Gleska University (SGU) is a public tribal land-grant university in Mission, South Dakota, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. It is a Brulé Lakota Indian Reservation home to the Sicangu. SGU has an enrollment of 828 full and part-time students. It is regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
The United States government illegally seized the Black Hills – a mountain range in the US states of South Dakota and Wyoming – from the Sioux Nation in 1876. The land was pledged to the Sioux Nation in the Treaty of Fort Laramie, but a few years later the United States illegally seized the land and nullified the treaty with the Indian Appropriations Bill of 1876, without the tribe's consent. That bill "denied the Sioux all further appropriation and treaty-guaranteed annuities" until they gave up the Black Hills. A Supreme Court case was ruled in favor of the Sioux in 1980. As of 2011, the court's award was worth over $1 billion, but the Sioux have outstanding issues with the ruling and have not collected the funds.
Crow Dog was a Brulé Lakota subchief, born at Horse Stealing Creek, Montana Territory.
Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556 (1883), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that followed the death of one member of a Native American tribe at the hands of another on reservation land. Crow Dog was a member of the Brulé band of the Lakota Sioux. On August 5, 1881 he shot and killed Spotted Tail, a Lakota chief; there are different accounts of the background to the killing. The tribal council dealt with the incident according to Sioux tradition, and Crow Dog paid restitution to the dead man's family. However, the U.S. authorities then prosecuted Crow Dog for murder in a federal court. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang.
Albert White Hat was a teacher of the Lakota language, and an activist for Sičháŋǧu Lakȟóta traditional culture. He translated the Lakota language for Hollywood movies, including the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves, and created a modern Lakota orthography and textbook.
Doris Leader Charge, was an American translator and educator. She taught Lakota language and culture courses at Sinte Gleska University for 28 years, and worked on the film Dances With Wolves (1990) as a translator and dialogue coach; she also appeared on-screen in a minor part.