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 people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples. Collectively, they are the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, or "Seven Council Fires". The term "Sioux", an exonym from a French transcription ("Nadouessioux") of the Ojibwe term "Nadowessi", can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, often referred to as the Zapatistas, is a far-left political and militant group that controlled a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians. AIM soon widened its focus from urban issues to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
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.
Wasi'chu is a loanword from the Sioux language which means a non-Indigenous person, particularly a white person, often with a disparaging meaning.
The Oglala are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the United States.
The Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation no. 437 is a Nakoda First Nation which reserves near Edmonton, Hinton, and Whitecourt, in the Canadian province of Alberta, and headquartered at 54° N and 114°, about 85 kilometres (53 mi) west of Edmonton. The Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation is a member of Treaty 6.
The Republic of Lakotah or Lakotah is a proposed independent republic in North America for the Lakota people. The idea of an independent nation of the Lakota was advanced in 2007 by activist Russell Means and the Lakota Freedom Movement. The suggested territory would be an enclave within the borders of the United States, covering thousands of square miles in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. The proposed national borders are those laid out in the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie between the United States government and the Lakota tribes. These lands are now occupied by Indian reservations and non-Native settlements.
Pekka Johannes Hämäläinen is a Finnish historian who has been the Rhodes Professor of American History at the University of Oxford since 2012. He was formerly in the history department at University of California, Santa Barbara.
Kent Monkman is a Canadian First Nations artist of Cree ancestry. He is a member of the Fisher River band situated in Manitoba's Interlake Region. Monkman lives and works in Toronto, Ontario.
David Archambault II is the former (2013–2017) tribal chairman of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. He was instrumental in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and continues to work to promote an understanding of the historical treaty rights and indigenous rights of Native American people. Archambault holds degrees in Business Administration and Management. In 2017 he joined FirstNation HealthCare as its chief consulting officer.
LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, known as Tamakawastewin, was a Native American Dakota and Lakota historian, genealogist, and a matriarch of the water protector movement.
Water protectors are activists, organizers, and cultural workers focused on the defense of the world's water and water systems. The water protector name, analysis and style of activism arose from Indigenous communities in North America during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at the Standing Rock Reservation, which began with an encampment on LaDonna Brave Bull Allard's land in April, 2016.
A member of Standing Rock in North and South Dakota, Phyllis Young has been an American Indian rights activist (Lakota/Dakota) for more than 40 years. She is most widely known for her leadership role in the anti-Dakota Access Pipeline struggle in 2016 and 2017. Young worked for Standing Rock from October 2015 to September 2017, ultimately as an organizer of the Oceti Sakowin Camp, where tens of thousands of protesters—known as “water protectors”—gathered over time to resist construction of the 1,172 mile long oil pipeline.
Mariame Kaba is an American activist, grassroots organizer, and educator who advocates for the abolition of the prison industrial complex, including all police. She is the author of We Do This 'Til We Free Us (2021). The Mariame Kaba Papers are held by the Chicago Public Library Special Collections.
The prison–industrial complex is the rapid expansion of US inmates and prisons in favor of private prison companies and businesses that profit from the services needed in the construction and maintaining of prisons. The businesses benefit and profit from cheap prison labor, food services, medical services, surveillance technology, and construction. The financial incentive of building prisons encourages incarceration and affects people of color at disproportionately high rates. Native Americans are the largest group per capita in the US prison system and are more likely to be affected by police violence than any other racial group.
Glen Sean Coulthard is a Canadian scholar of Indigenous studies who serves as an associate professor in the political science department at the University of British Columbia. A member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, he is also a co-founder, educator, and on the board of directors at Dechinta: Centre for Research and Learning. He is best known for his 2014 book, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, which has been released in both English and French.
A Fireworks Celebration at Mount Rushmore held on July 3, 2020, was the first and only use of fireworks at Mount Rushmore since 2008. President Donald Trump spoke at the event, which was also attended by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, host of Entertainment Tonight Mary Hart, First Lady Melania Trump and Trump's eldest son Donald Trump Jr.
