Episode 44: Fighting for Turtle Island: A conversation with Indigenous Water Protectors

The Activist Files Podcast

The third Thursday in November is a National Day of Mourning, where we mourn the genocide of millions of Native people and the theft of Native land, and where we honor the ongoing struggle for Native liberation and Land Back across Turtle Island. In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day last month — and in support of the Indigenous-led week of action People v. Fossil Fuels — the Indigenous Environmental Network, The Red Nation, and the Center for Constitutional Rights held an online discussion with frontline Indigenous Water Protectors: Water Is Our Critical Infrastructure — Lawfare by Oil and Gas Won’t Stop Us from Winning. Activists Anne White Hat (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) and Sungmanitu Bluebird (Oglala Sioux) joined Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Attorney Pamela Spees and moderator Advocacy Director Nadia Ben-Yousef to discuss the increasingly desperate tactics by the oil and gas industry to draft and pass laws that target Indigenous people and threaten all those who take an unflinching stance against capitalist violence and the destruction of the Earth. They highlighted the important legal victory by Anne White Hat and other Water Protectors who fought back against Louisiana’s industry-developed “critical infrastructure” law—and won! This podcast is taken from that event, with a new introduction from Nadia Ben-Youssef situating the discussion in the context of the National Day of Mourning.