'Free Leonard Peltier' A Film For the People
"Free Leonard Peltier" begins in Leavenworth. And with the sound of the metal crash of the prison door behind him, there is the sound of the passage of time, years and years of time.
Free Leonard Peltier tells the long story, back from the beginning, of the injustice, the police beatings, lives stolen in boarding schools, and the 68 murders on Pine Ridge. It tells the story of the soft-spoken Leonard Peltier.
The images, from Alcatraz to the BIA takeover in Washington, to the Jumping Bull Camp, tell the story of those who were there and have always known what happened.
The film reveals one of the longest-running secrets in Indian country.
The firefight at the Jumping Bull Camp, that left Joe Stuntz and two FBI agents dead, came after the American Indian Movement shifted its emphasis. AIM made it a priority to stop destructive mining.
In this well-kept secret, uranium had been discovered in the Badlands on Pine Ridge, and the U.S. government wanted it for their atomic bombs. Oglala President Dick Wilson was their player.
John Trudell tells this part, hidden from history.
"On June 26, 1975, the same day as the firefight, Dickie Wilson was in Washington, he signed away one-eighth of the reservation, he just signed it away, without the consent of the people," Trudell said.
"About the same time you've got FBI agents provoking a firefight on the reservation, I believe that the FBI provoked the incident that day because they wanted to draw attention away from Dickie Wilson, one-eighth of the land is a pretty major political issue when someone just gives it away."
Madonna Thunder Hawk, Lakota, says, "It's always because of the land."
The film makes it clear that Peltier was fighting a machine.
American Indian Movement leaders, including Russell Means, had new goals and objections for AIM before the firefight. Among these: "To halt strip-mining and similar exploitation of natural resources on Indian land."
It is the back story that people don't want to hear.
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/02/free-leonard-peltier-film-for-people.html
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