AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT OF COLORADO and TRANSFORM COLUMBUS DAY ALLIANCE ANNOUNCE THE FOUR DIRECTIONS ALL NATIONS MARCH & RALLY IN HONOR OF TROYLYNN STAR YELLOW WOOD
From Standing Rock to Bear Butte, Devils Tower, Oak Flat, Black Mesa, the San Francisco Peaks, Desert Rock, Tar Sands, Mauna Kea, and hundreds of other locations of spiritual significance, life and death struggles of the original nations and peoples within territories presently called the Americas continue in 2016. The racist idea-system of domination, exploitation and environmental degradation in the name of infinite greed was established through the Christian Doctrine of Discovery, carried on through the arrival of Christopher Columbus after he sailed his ships into the waters and territories of original nations and peoples. The celebration of the Columbus Day Holiday is a symptom of the imagined belief that invaders of these continents, primarily European colonists, inherited a divine right to coerce obedience and politically disenfranchise the ancient and sophisticated societies that were born of Great Turtle Island ("North America") and Abya Yala ("the Americas"). The oppressive legacy of Columbus extends to the descendants of African slaves whose ancestors were terrorized, captured, raped and stolen from their homelands to be bought and sold as property. Christopher Columbus personally established and profited from the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and we see the root cause of ongoing oppression of our Black sisters and brothers in the United States as a direct consequence of the intersecting injustices embedded in the idea-system of the Doctrine of Discovery and Domination.
This year, the American Indian Movement of Colorado and Transform Columbus Day Alliance honor Representative Joe Salazar for authoring, sponsoring and ushering in HB 16-1135 to change the name of the Columbus Day Holiday in Colorado to Indigenous Peoples Day. His consciousness of our Peoples' history and marginalization is heroic. We are also grateful to both Representative Su Ryden and Representative Susan Lontine for supporting the bill to make Columbus Day obsolete; our communities honor their collective stance of courage in the face of racism.
We call on our non-Native allies to march with us this year, and to come out in support of future legislation to repeal the Columbus Day Holiday, as well as to further their involvement and learn about all the contemporary, complex movements of Nonviolent Indigenous Resistance seeking to create vital change for all our relations.
SATURDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2016, MEET at 11:30 AM, STEP OFF at 12:30 PM:
NORTH DIRECTION meets at Cleo Parker Robinson School of Dance
(119 Park Ave West), WEAR RED
EAST DIRECTION meets at Cheesman Park
(12th Ave and Franklin St), WEAR YELLOW
SOUTH DIRECTION meets at Four Winds American Indian Council
(201 W 5th Ave), WEAR WHITE
WEST DIRECTION meets at Auraria Campus
(St. Cajetan's Cathedral), WEAR BLACK
DESTINATION: RALLY at CAPITOL at 1:30 PM, with KEYNOTE SPEAKER PHYLLIS YOUNG (Standing Rock Sioux Nation)
Following rally, meal provided at Four Winds American Indian Council at 4 PM
www.transformcolumbus day.org
MEDIA CONTACT:
Tessa McLean, American Indian Movement of Colorado
