BELCOURT, N.D. – An event 49 years in the making erupted inside a casino event center Wednesday on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.
As drummers sang, 80-year-old Chippewa and Lakota activist Leonard Peltier walked into a room full of nearly 500 supporters and family members during a welcome home celebration.
Led by Native dancers in regalia, he walked past banners that read “Rise up. Free Leonard Peltier,” “Enough is enough. Free Leonard Peltier,” and “Leonard’s liberation is our liberation.”
And past a teepee draped with a banner that read “Welcome home Leonard Peltier.”
Nick Tilsen, the founder and chief executive of NDN Collective — a Native nonprofit that worked to secure Peltier’s release — led Peltier through the crowd as supporters let loose war whoops and held cell phones high in the air to capture the moment.
The children of late American Indian Movement activists like Clyde Bellecourt — whose son Little Crow Bellecourt sang at a drum — and Peltier’s own children paid homage to the nearly five-decade imprisonment of a man whose plight became synonymous with the fight for Indigenous justice worldwide.
Tilsen’s own grandfather, Ken Tilsen, defended many of AIM’s members who were arrested and jailed following the 1973 siege at Wounded Knee.
Peltier was released from federal prison in Sumterville, Florida, on Tuesday, Feb. 18, to make the journey home. Outgoing President Joe Biden issued an order as he was leaving office Jan. 20 to grant clemency to Peltier, who suffered from serious health problems, including diabetes, vision loss, heart problems, an aortic aneurysm and the lingering effects of COVID-19.
Until Biden’s last-minute action, Peltier had repeatedly been denied parole, pardon, clemency and compassionate release and had seen eight presidents leave office without pardoning him or commuting his sentence.
His release came after decades of grassroots organizing in Indian Country and the presentation of evidence of misconduct and constitutional violations during the prosecution of Peltier’s case.
Fighting for Indigenous rights
After listening to several honoring songs Wednesday, Peltier sat down at a long table facing the crowd, and Tilsen thanked the many Native leaders who fought for Indigenous rights during the tumultuous 1970s.
“That generation stood up against the most powerful government in the world and they instilled that pride back into our people,” he said. “They instilled that fight back into our people. This effort was successful because we walked on prayer, because we walked in our ceremonies. That was the foundation of this effort.”
He promised to continue the work of those Indigenous civil rights leaders who came before him.
“We are on a continuum of 500 years of Indigenous resistance, but today, today is a victory day,” he said.
Peltier then stood and took the microphone. Wearing a sheep-skin denim coat and a ribbon shirt, the soft-spoken elder’s voice struggled to fill the large room, but in the nearly complete silence he managed to tell his story.
“Hello, everybody,” he said. Shouts of “we love you!” came back.
“I spent 49 years straight in prison for something I didn’t do and was not legally convicted of,” he said.
He said Robert Robideau and Darrelle “Dino” Butler — the other two men arrested in the shooting deaths of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams — were exonerated as having simply defended themselves during the shootout on June 26, 1975.
Peltier was not convicted of killing the agents, but he served 49 years after being convicted of aiding and abetting in their murder.
He said the federal government felt compelled to put its “full weight” into ensuring his conviction by whatever means necessary.
“I was no more guilty than my co-defendants,” he said.
He said his time in prison was difficult and he wasn’t sure he would survive. Not long after he was first imprisoned, he was placed in a sensory deprivation cell in which he experienced total darkness and had only a blanket.
“When I first went into prison, they treated me like shit, man,” he said.
A parole commission’s decision on June 10, 2024, to deny him parole for another 15 more years was like a “death sentence,” he said.
Peltier will face home confinement for his final days, but, he said, “It’s a lot better than living in a cell.”
“They tried all kinds of different things, but I beat them. I beat the bastards,” he said to thunderous applause.
Looking around the event center inside the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe’s Sky Dancer Casino, he remarked on how well his tribe seemed to be doing.
“When I left, we didn’t have a pot to piss in,” he said. “We had nothing, man.”
He thanked those supporters who fought for so many years for his freedom.
“I have a hard time keeping myself from crying,” he said. “Thank you, thank you very much for showing me this support.
“It was worth it to me, to be able to sacrifice.”
‘Dignified, strong’
Standing outside the conference room, Nick Tilsen spoke to ICT about his experience in the hours since Peltier’s release from prison.
“It’s been intense,” he said. “It’s been powerful to be able to see Leonard Peltier being in joy.”
He said the details of Peltier’s home confinement have yet to be worked out.
“He’ll have some restrictions, but he’s going to be able to go to ceremony. He’s going to be able to go to meetings in his own community. He’s going to be able to have a life.”
He said it was a logistical challenge to organize Peltier’s release and journey home, as well as events related to his homecoming. In all their planning, NDN Collective leaders have focused on Peltier’s safety, security and health, Tilsen said.
All of the hard work securing Peltier’s release, he said, was worth it when he saw him walk out of Coleman Federal Corrections Complex in Florida.
“He walked out dignified, strong,” Tilsen said. “He shook the hands of the corrections officers and the transition team, and they were happy, too, that he was being released.”
He said he and Peltier got into a vehicle, Peltier in the backseat, and “Come and Get Your Love” by Indigenous rock band Redbone began playing.
“We drove out of Coleman Maximum Security Prison listening to Redbone. And Leonard Peltier is free, dancing in the backseat. It was beautiful.”
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