Native Americans On "Longest Walk 2" to Grand Canyon, Colorado

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=33891466&blogID=366880947

Friday, March 14, 2008

Native Americans On "Longest Walk 2" to Grand Canyon, Colorado

By Darrin Mortenson

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Beale Springs, Arizona - When northwestern Arizona’s Hualapai Indians got in the way of the Anglos’ westward expansion in the 1860’s, US soldiers rounded them up, penned them in and forced survivors to march some 100 miles across the desert to a reservation far from white commerce.

"We became strangers to our own land," said Loretta Jackson, the tribe’s current director of cultural resources, who says the tribe now suffers a scourge of alcoholism and health issues, encroachment from rampant development and invasions of their sacred sites.

It’s a story familiar to Native American tribes across the continent, and one of many such stories now getting a fresh hearing as activists of the American Indian Movement once again take the "Longest Walk" across the nation from Alcatraz, California, to Washington, DC, visiting the Hualapai and other tribes and spotlighting Indian and environmental issues as they go.

Traveling in two groups - a northern band of some 40 hardy souls now entering snowy Colorado, and a southern group of about 100 trekking across the Arizona desert near the Grand Canyon - the activists struck out from San Francisco on foot on February 11 and say they hope to reach the nation’s capital on July 11. Once in Washington, they plan to deliver Congress a "manifesto" relating what they learn from tribes and other Americans they meet along the way.

"We’re messengers," said Larry Bringing Good, a 53-year-old former US Marine and long-time Indian activist. "Our message is that all life is sacred."

Bringing Good, a tall, dark Cheyenne-Arapaho native of Oklahoma, was among members of the southern group this week who met with delegates of the Peach Springs Hualapai reservation near the town of Kingman, Arizona. Their roadside camp in a dirt lot behind the local American Legion post was rustled awake at 4 a.m. by drumming and chanting of Japanese Buddhist monks who march with the group. After breaking camp, they gathered to hear Hualapai elder Emmett Bender bless that day’s leg of the journey before they moved on foot toward the Grand Canyon.

FULL story at link.

[VeraAgnes]

1. Thank you for sharing this humble message.

My heart aches reading about the abuse to the Tribes. Tragic and shaming. :cry: :grouphug:

They, the Tribals are a spiritual role model for the world.

[Bobbieo]

2. Thank you Steve, for bringing this to DU.

[randr]

3. Are there any contacts arranged for assistence along the way?

[Omaha Steve]

5. I came across the article by accident

That is all I know about it.

OS

[troubleinwinter]

6. HERE is the link to THE LONGEST WALK project and how to help!

http://www.longestwalk.org/

[xchrom]

4. recommend