Green Bay rally by American Indian Movement Wisconsin Chapter calls for release of imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier
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GREEN BAY - Members representing the American Indian Movement, Wisconsin Chapter, rallied in Green Bay Monday calling for the release of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who has been in federal prison since 1977.
“He has proven his innocence,” said Jezelle Shawanokazic, director of the American Indian Movement in Wisconsin. “All he did was advocate for our people and treaties, and against corruption. He didn’t place harm on anyone.”
Peltier was sentenced for his suspected involvement in a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota that left two FBI agents dead.
In his 1999 memoir “Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance,” Peltier admitted he was at the shootout, but said he did not kill the agents.
Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and the 14th Dalai Lama have each campaigned for Peltier’s release.
Peltier is a prominent member of the American Indian Movement, which formed in Minneapolis in 1968 and has called global attention to tribal sovereignty issues in the U.S.
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Members of the organization had occupied the abandoned U.S. Coast Guard Station in Milwaukee in 1971 under an apparent federal treaty provision that abandoned federal land would revert back to Indigenous tribal ownership.
That reasoning led to the occupation of other abandoned federal sites at the time by American Indians, including Alcatraz Island in 1969.
The occupiers of the abandoned Milwaukee Coast Guard station had been armed, but there was never any confrontation, and the group was successful in negotiating the relocation of a culturally based alcoholism treatment program and the Indian Community School to the site.
The Forest County Potawatomi Community took over the site and had operated a school there, and eventually opened a casino in Milwaukee.
Shawanokazic said Peltier, 78, has become ill with age-related issues and is still forced in solitary confinement.
“He’s an elder and no harm to anyone,” she said.
Seven others, including citizens of the Oneida and Menominee nations, joined Shawanokazic in the rally Monday, which was held outside the Fox 11 studio on Lombardi Avenue.
They are also affiliated with Shawanokazic’s Appleton-based music label HGM Music Group, which features local Indigenous hip-hop performers.
Shawanokazic, who goes by the stage name J25, is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and was recently inducted into the Recording Academy as a judge for the Grammy Awards. She took on the role of director of the American Indian Movement in Wisconsin in October 2022.
Frank Vaisvilas is a Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.You can directly support his work with a tax-deductible donation online at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA or by check made out to The GroundTruth Project with subject line Report for America Green Bay Press Gazette Campaign. Address: The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services, 9450 SW Gemini Drive, PMB 46837, Beaverton, Oregon 97008-7105.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay rally calls for release of Leonard Peltier, Native activist
