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 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.
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.
Charmaine White Face, or Zumila Wobaga, is an Oglala Tetuwan from the Oceti Sakowin in North America.
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.
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.
The Romero Institute is a nonprofit law and public policy center in Santa Cruz, California. The organization was formed by activists of the Christic Institute and is named after the Archbishop of San Salvador Óscar Arnulfo Romero. The institute has two main projects: the Lakota People's Law Project based in part in the Dakotas, and Greenpower, based in California.
Madonna Thunder Hawk is a Native American civil rights activist best known as a leader in the American Indian Movement (AIM) and as an organizer against the Dakota Access Pipeline. She co-founded the American Indian organization Women of All Red Nations and serves as the Director of Grassroots Organizing for the Red Road Institute.
The Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, also called by the hashtag #NoDAPL, began in April 2016 as a grassroots opposition to the construction of Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline in the northern United States and ended on February 23, 2017 when National Guard and law enforcement officers evicted the last remaining protesters. The pipeline runs from the Bakken oil fields in western North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, as well as under part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Many members of the Standing Rock tribe and surrounding communities consider the pipeline to be a serious threat to the region's water. The construction also directly threatens ancient burial grounds and cultural sites of historic importance.
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 Tamakawastewin Brave Bull Allard was a Native American Dakota and Lakota historian, genealogist, and a matriarch of the water protector movement. In April 2016, she was one of the founders of the resistance camps of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, aimed at halting the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
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.
#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, 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.
