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| Powerful voices in 'Free Leonard Peltier' Image by Censored News |
Free Leonard Peltier A Film For the People
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Feb. 11, 2025
"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.
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| "We have found it necessary to force the white man to listen to what Indian people have to say. We are sovereign people. We only want the white man to live up to his own laws. You know that the BIA violates federal law every day." -- Russell Means. |
There is another story, within the web of stories here. It describes the targeting of Peltier after he served as head of security during the BIA takeover in Washington in 1972, and later of the "judge shopping" carried out by the federal government.
This meant, after being extradited from Canada, that his case would be heard in Fargo, North Dakota -- a place where racist judges and jurors were easy to find.
Already, Dino Butler and Bob Robideau, had been acquitted after successfully arguing self-defense at the Jumping Bull Camp.
It is not an easy story to tell, and Jesse Short Bull, Oglala Lakota co-director from the Badlands on Pine Ridge, knows it, and tells it well.
Peltier was just one of the victims of the Reign of Terror on Pine Ridge. Alex White Plume, Lakota, describes how the people lived with constant grief.
"There were 68 murders here, and no one ever went to jail. It was awful here. My dad was killed, then my mom was killed in '73, then my sisters were killed."
"Every day we were all living in grief."
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| Leonard Peltier 'Free Leonard Peltier' screenshot by Censored News |
Within the prison, Peltier says throughout the film that he is innocent, and affirms that he did not kill the two FBI agents. The film reveals that President Clinton said that if Peltier would admit his guilt, then he would pardon him. That did not happen.
During the interviews, Leonard is asked if he is a militant.
"In the 1800s, they called us savages, and renegades, I guess today I'm a militant. All I know is that I'm someone that tried to advocate for Indian rights, tried to make a better life for my people, and try to help, if that's a militant, I guess I'm a militant."
Asked if he killed the agents, he says 'No." Then asked if he was convicted because he was a member of the American Indian Movement, he responds, "Yes. Definitely."
Ramona Bennett, Puyallup elder and activist, knew Peltier when he was a hard-working young mechanic in Seattle. Peltier had a garage and was known for helping the elders with their cars. "He was a generous, kind person."
Peltier' said that it was during that time that he started questioning the beatings of Native people by police officers and what gave them the authority to arrest people. Native people were being terrorized by police.
"So I went to Denver and joined the American Indian Movement."
Taken from his family and forced into boarding school as a child, he endured the harsh treatment. And when he was older, and free, he went to the Sundance.
"My friends and I were actually arrested when we came out of the Sundance grounds. I began to realize that my real crime was simply being who I was, an Indian."
"Our lands were being leased right out from under us by white ranchers."
"My family like many others wound up with no place to stay."
"People were forced off the rez to the urban rez ghettos."
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| Leonard helped organize the caravan from Milwaukee on the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972. On the caravan that began in the Northwest, Madonna Thunder Hawk tells how they stopped all along the way and met with traditional people. They were welcomed, the people had no one who would listen to them. Leonard said, "They were looking for someone who could give them some kind of hope." Madonna adds, "Resistance is an obligation." After the caravan arrived in Washington, and negotiations with the BIA failed, Madonna says, "So we took over the building." |
The film follows his journey, and at the Jumping Bull Camp, it is an eagle who leads them out. The film reveals the questions of the cover-up about the weapon used at the Jumping Bull Camp. It includes interviews with those who testified against Peltier. They make it clear that they testified against Peltier because they had been threatened.
Peltier's attorneys, spanning 50 years of his imprisonment, and the U.S. Attorney who advocated for his release, provide details and answers.
Myrtle Poor Bear claimed to be Peltier's girlfriend and that she witnessed him murder the FBI agents at point blank range. Poor Bear was responsible for Peltier's extradition from Alberta, Canada. She admits the truth.
"I never met him," Poor Bear said.
In the end, there are those waiting outside Coleman Federal Prison in Florida for the news in January, and it comes. Biden, faced with opposition for this decision, during the last minutes before leaving office, grants Peltier clemency. Biden commuted Peltier's sentences to house arrest, with the release date from prison on February 18.
After 50 years in prison, Leonard will be free.
In the end, Peltier's story is not just his story, but a mirror of the time, a mirror of the lives of the people.
It is a film for the people.
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| Family and friends, during the long road to justice. 'Free Leonard Peltier' film screenshot by Censored News |
Previous article at Censored News
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By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Feb. 4, 2025
TSAILE, Navajo Nation -- The words of Buffy Sainte Marie, censored by Indian Country Today, led to revelations about Oglala President Dick Wilson's secret land deal on Pine Ridge in the new film Free Leonard Peltier, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, producer Jesse Short Bull told Censored News.
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https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/02/buffys-censored-words-led-to.html
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| 'Free Leonard Peltier' screenshot by Censored News |
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