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 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.
Nakota is the endonym used by those Native peoples of North America who usually go by the name of Assiniboine, in the United States, and of Stoney, in Canada.
The Standing Rock Reservation lies across the border between North and South Dakota in the United States, and is inhabited by ethnic "Hunkpapa and Sihasapa bands of Lakota Oyate and the Ihunktuwona and Pabaksa bands of the Dakota Oyate," as well as the Hunkpatina Dakota. The Ihanktonwana Dakota are the Upper Yanktonai, part of the collective of Wiciyena. The sixth-largest Native American reservation in land area in the US, Standing Rock includes all of Sioux County, North Dakota, and all of Corson County, South Dakota, plus slivers of northern Dewey and Ziebach counties in South Dakota, along their northern county lines at Highway 20.
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.
Women of All Red Nations (WARN) was a Native American women's organization that fought for Native American civil and reproductive rights. It was established in 1974 by Lorelei DeCora Means, Madonna Thunderhawk, Phyllis Young, Janet McCloud, Marie Sanchez and others. WARN included more than 300 women from 30 different tribal communities. Many of its members had previously been active in the American Indian Movement and were participants in the 1973 Wounded Knee incident. The inaugural conference took place in Rapid City, South Dakota.
The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a coalition of indigenous, grassroots environmental justice activists, primarily based in the United States. Group members have represented Native American concerns at international events such as the United Nations Climate Change conferences in Copenhagen (2009) and Paris (2016). IEN organizes an annual conference to discuss proposed goals and projects for the coming year; each year the conference is held in a different indigenous nation. The network emphasizes environmental protection as a form of spiritual activism. IEN received attention in the news as a major organizer of the fight against the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
Madonna Thunder Hawk is a Native American civil rights activist best known as a member and leader in the American Indian Movement (AIM), co-founding Women of All Red Nations (WARN) and the Black Hills Alliance, and as an organizer against the Dakota Access Pipeline. She established the Wasagiya Najin Grandmothers' Group on the Cheyenne River to help build kinship networks while also developing Simply Smiles Children Village. She also serves as the Director of Grassroots Organizing for the Red Road Institute. Thunderhawk has spoken around the world as a delegate to the United Nations and is currently the Lakota People's Law Project principal and Tribal liaison. She was an international Indian Treaty Council delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Also, a delegate to the U.N. Decade of Women Conference in Mexico City and in the 2001 to the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa.
The Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, also known by the hashtag #NoDAPL, were a series of grassroots Native American protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in the northern United States that began in April 2016. Protests ended on February 23, 2017 when National Guard and law enforcement officers evicted the last remaining protesters.
David Archambault II is a Sioux politician who served as tribal chairman of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota from 2013 to 2017. 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.
Greg Grey Cloud is a Crow Creek Nation educator, singer and activist. Grey Cloud is a co-founder of Wica Agli, a non-profit to end violence against women, children, and in general in the community. He is a notable ecologist and defender of Native American rights; gaining national attention when he sang an Honor Song in the Senate after the Keystone XL Pipeline bill was defeated, and in leading the Spirit Riders to protect the Standing Rock Reservation affected by the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Police brutality is defined as the use of excessive force by law enforcement personnel while performing their official duties in an abusive and unjustified manner. Police brutality can also include psychological harm through the use of intimidation tactics beyond the scope of officially sanctioned police procedure.
#NODAPL, also referred to as the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, is a Twitter hashtag and social media campaign for the struggle against the proposed and partially built Dakota Access Pipeline. The role social media played in this movement is so substantial that the movement itself is now often referred to by its hashtag: #NoDAPL. The hashtag reflected a grassroots campaign that began in early 2016 in reaction to the approved construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in the northern United States. The Standing Rock Sioux and allied organizations took legal action aimed at stopping construction of the project, while youth from the reservation began a social media campaign which gradually evolved into a larger movement with dozens of associated hashtags. The campaign aimed to raise awareness on the threat of the pipeline on the sacred burial grounds as well as the quality of water in the area. In June 2021, a federal judge struck down the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's lawsuit, but left the option of reopening the case should any prior orders be violated.
Debra White Plume was a Lakota political activist and water protector. She fought to protect the traditional Oglala Lakota way of life.
Arvol Looking Horse is a Lakota Native American spiritual leader. He is the 19th keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and Bundle.
Jasilyn Charger is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and is from Eagle Butte, South Dakota, USA. Charger is a land activist, water protector, community organizer, and advocate for Native American and LGBTQ rights, and a youth founder of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. They have also protested against the Keystone Pipeline, and were arrested for their non-violent civil disobedience in November 2020.
Tara Houska Zhaabowekwe is a tribal attorney, land defender and climate justice activist.
Floris White Bull is a Native American activist and writer.
