Longest Walk 5 stops in Lansing, brings attention to missing, murdered Indigenous women, substance abuse

A group of Native Americans started walking from Leech Lake, Minnesota to Washington, D.C. on May 1 to call attention to issues affecting their community.

They reached Lansing on June 15 after traveling through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Darla Banks, daughter of the late Native American activist Dennis Banks, walks for her father’s spirit and her late daughter Rose Downwind. Walkers are focused on missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Authorities located Downwind, 31, on Oct. 20, 2015, in Bemidji, Minnesota 52 days after she was reported missing, according to Indian Country Today archives.

Banks is Ojibwe and a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.

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“My dad had added domestic violence to the walk because my daughter, she was missing and was found murdered,” Banks said.

Dennis Banks co-founded the American Indian Movement in 1968 with Russell Means, Eddie Benton-Banai and Clyde Bellecourt. They started it to address systemic poverty, police brutality and discrimination in their communities.

Dennis Banks, Bellecourt and Benton-Banai were Ojibwe. Means was Oglala Lakota. Bellecourt was the last of the founding members to die on Jan. 11 of this year.

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This is Darla Banks’ first walk without her father, who died in 2017.

Alicia Roberts, a Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma citizen, is participating in her first Longest Walk. She said she's in recovery and the walk is a healing movement for her. .

”Me and my family decided to finish my dad’s walk,” Banks said. “We can’t start or do another walk until we finish. This staff needs to go to Washington (D.C.).”

Why are they walking?

Dawne DuShane walks to heal herself.

She celebrated six years sober April 24.

"I'm able to use this experience as a new way of looking at life because it was Dennis Banks who introduced this cultural approach to recovery," she said.

DuShane is a member of Cherokee Nation. She started a sobriety group in Oklahoma to heal tribal members.

She walked in 2016 from Tulsa, Oklahoma, with Muscogee (Creek) Nation to Washington, D.C. They detoured to Standing Rock Indian Reservation that August to join the Dakota Access Pipeline protest.

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DuShane said she later escaped domestic violence and had back surgery. She didn't think she could walk again.

"It really means a lot to me to be able to walk, put these miles in and be able to meet everyone and see their struggles," DuShane said. "Somehow, it inadvertently gives me the strength to endure my struggle a little bit more."

Citizens of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe joined the walkers as they came down from the Upper Peninsula. That added the issue of boarding schools, where 225 children in Mount Pleasant attended but never made it home, said Frank Cloutier, director of public relations for the tribe, in October.

Sky Bonilla, who's a tribal citizen and lives on the Isabella Reservation, joined the walk for his family. He called for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to step in and address domestic abuse on reservations. His niece has been missing for 11 years and Bonilla fights for her return.

"The BIA really needs to step in and discuss what's going on in reservations with federal law and protection of our Native women," he said. "Men come to reservations because they feel like they can get away with raping and killing our women, and then we have MMIW. It's why I wear red."

Bedahbin Webkamigad, of the Odawa tribe, did the first national walk in 1978, protesting threats to tribal land and water rights. This walk, she said, is just as important as many push for the return of missing women.

Dushane said she has confidence the walkers will make it to Washington, D.C., because of the family that develops over the miles. She recalled Dennis Banks telling walkers they need to be a family to finish.

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"We're gonna make it," DuShane said. "I think it's gonna be a great historical change, something that will help our people in the nations that we represent."

They’ll leave Michigan for Ohio, shortly. They follow a planned route, but DuShane said they ultimately let Creator guide them.

How can people help?

The Longest Walk group is collecting donations, via the Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition, to fund fuel, batteries and food. Go to LongestWalk.us.

Donations along the route can be coordinated through Dawne DuShane by phone at 918-525-8082 or DDYellowFlower@gmail. .

Donations can also be mailed to the coalition, with a memo line for LW5 Spirit Walk, to 1710 Blue Rock St., Cincinnati, OH, 45223.

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Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at (517) 267-1344 or knurse@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @KrystalRNurse.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Native Americans continue 1,700-mile journey for MMIW, substance abuse