Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance, by Leonard Peltier, was released this week by its publishers at St. Martin's Press. Leonard Peltier is an American Indian humanitarian, world renowned artist and is well known for his non-violent style of defending Indian rights. Peltier has been called the Nelson Mandela of the America Indian people.

The book was written from behind the cold prison bars of Leavenworth. Peltier is serving two life sentences for crimes that FBI agents and other government entities have admitted could not have been done by Peltier. He is considered by Amnesty International and many other humanitarian organizations to be a political prisoner.

According to prison officials, Peltier's plight has also attracted the attention of Britain's Queen Elizabeth. In February 1999, the European Parliament approved a resolution calling for Peltier to be freed. France's former First Lady Danielle Mitterand, who is president of the French human rights organization, France Libertes, is calling for the release of Leonard Peltier.

The book's editor, Harvey Arden said, "Leonard Peltier's powerful memoir, a Native American spiritual testament, will shake the conscience of the nation...and the world. It's a flaming arrow aimed at the circled wagons of American injustice."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls it: "A deeply moving and very disturbing story of a gross miscarriage of justice and an eloquent cri de coeur of Native Americans for redress and to be regarded as human beings with inalienable rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution as any other citizens. We pray that it does not fall on deaf ears. America owes it to herself."

THE TIME HAS COME for me to set forth in words my personal testament-not because I'm planning to die, but because I'm planning to live.

           This is the twenty-third year of my imprisonment for a crime I didn't commit. I'm now fifty-four years old. I've been in here since I was thirty-one. I've been told I have to live out two lifetime sentences plus seven years before I get out of prison in the year Two Thousand and Forty One. By then I'll be ninety-seven. I don't think I'll make it.

           My life is an extended agony. I feel like I've lived a hundred lifetimes in prison already. But I'm prepared to live thousands more on behalf of my people. If my imprisonment does nothing more than educate an unknowing and uncaring public about the terrible conditions Indian people continue to endure, then my suffering has had--and continues to have--a purpose. My people's struggle to survive inspires my own struggle to survive. Each of us must be a survivor.

I ACKNOWLEDGE my inadequacies as a spokesman, my many imperfections as a human being. And yet, as the Elders taught me, speaking out is my first duty, my first obligation to myself and to my people. To speak your mind and heart is Indian Way. In Indian Way, the political and the spiritual are one and the same. You can't believe one thing and do another. What you believe and what you do are the same thing. In Indian Way, if you see your people suffering, helping them is an absolute necessity. It's not a social act of charity or welfare assistance; it's a spiritual act, a holy deed.

I HAVE NO APOLOGIES, ONLY SORROW. I can't apologize for what I haven't done. But I can grieve, and I do. Every day, every hour, I grieve for those who died at the Oglala firefight in 1975 and for their families-for the families of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams and, yes, for the family of Joe Killsright Stuntz--a 21-year-old brave hearted Indian whose death from a bullet at Oglala that same day, like the deaths of hundreds of other Indians at Pine Ridge at that terrible time, has never been investigated. My heart aches in remembering the suffering and fear under which so many of my people were forced to live at that time, the very suffering and fear that brought me and the others to Oglala that day-to defend the defenseless.

           And I'm filled with an aching sorrow, too, for the loss to my own family because, in a very real way, I also died that day. I died to my family, to my children, to my grandchildren, to myself. I've lived out my own death for nearly a quarter of a century now.

           Those who put me here and keep me here knowing of my innocence can take grim satisfaction in their sure reward--which is being who and what they are. That's as terrible a reward as any I could imagine.

           I know who and what I am. I am an Indian--an Indian who dared to stand up to defend his people. I am an innocent man who never murdered anyone nor wanted to. And, yes, I am a Sun Dancer. That, too, is my identity. If I am to suffer as a symbol of my people, then I suffer proudly. I will never yield.

IF YOU, THE LOVED ONES of the agents who died at the Jumping Bull property that day, get some salve of satisfaction out of my being here, then at least I can give you that, even though innocent of their blood. I feel your loss as my own. Like you, I suffer that loss every day, every hour. And so does my family. We know that inconsolable grief. We Indians are born, live and die with inconsolable grief. We've shared our common grief for twenty-three years now, your families and mine, so how can we possibly be enemies anymore? Maybe it's with you and with us that the healing can start. You, the agent's families, certainly weren't at fault that day in1975, any more than my family was, and yet you and they have suffered as much as, even more than, anyone there. It seems it's always the innocent who pay the highest price for injustice. It's seemed that way all my life.

To the still-grieving Coler and Williams families I send my prayers if you will have them. I hope you will. They are the prayers of an entire people, not just my own. We have many dead of our own to pray for, and we join our prayers of sorrow to yours. Let our common grief be our bond. I state to you absolutely that, if I could possibly have prevented what happened that day, your menfolk would not have died. I would have died myself before knowingly permitting what happened to happen. And I certainly never pulled the trigger that did it. May the Creator strike me dead this moment if I lie. I cannot see how my being here, torn from my own grandchildren, can possibly mend your loss. I swear to you, I am guilty only of being an Indian. That's why I'm here.

           Being who I am, being who you are--that's Aboriginal Sin.

NO DOUBT, MY NAME will soon be among the list of our Indian dead. At least I'll have good company--for no finer, kinder, braver, wiser, worthier men and women have ever walked this Earth than those who have already died for being Indian.

           Our dead keep coming at us, a long, long line of dead, ever-growing, never-ending. To list all their names would be impossible, for the great majority died unknown, unacknowledged. Yes, the roll call of our Indian dead needs to be cried out, to be shouted from every hilltop in order to shatter the terrible silence that tries to erase the fact that we ever existed.

           I would like to see a redstone wall like the blackstone wall of the Vietnam War Memorial. Yes, right there on the Mall in Washington, D.C. And on that redstone wall--pigmented with the living blood of our people (and I would happily be the first to donate that blood)--would be the names of all the Indians who ever died for being Indian. It would be dozens of times longer than the Vietnam Memorial, which celebrates the deaths of fewer than 60,000 brave lost souls. The number of our brave lost souls reaches into the many millions, and every one of them remains unquiet until this day.

           Yes, the voices of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, of Buddy Lamont and Frank Clearwater, of Joe Stuntz and Dallas Thundershield, of Wesley Bad Heart Bull and Raymond Yellow Thunder, of Bobby Garcia and Anna Mae Aquash... those and so, so many others. Their stilled voices cry out at us and demand to be heard.

PEOPLE OFTEN ASK ME what my position is, or was, in AIM--the American Indian Movement. That requires an explanation.

           AIM is not an organization. AIM, as its name clearly says, is a movement. Within that movement organizations come and go. No one person or special group of people runs AIM. Don't confuse AIM with any particular individual or individuals who march under its banner--however worthy or unworthy they may be. AIM is the People. AIM will be there when every one of us living today is gone. AIM will raise new leaders in every generation. Crazy Horse belonged to AIM. Sitting Bull belonged to AIM. They belong to us still, and we belong to them. They're with us now.

           One other point I want to make about AIM. There are no followers in AIM. We are all leaders. We are each an army of one, working for the survival of our people and of the Earth, our Mother. This isn't rhetoric. This is commitment. This is who we are.

           Yes, we can each be an army of one. One good man or one good woman can change the world, can push back the evil, and their work can be a beacon for millions, for billions. Are you that man or woman? If so, may the Great Spirit bless you. If not, why not? We must each of us be that person. That will transform the world overnight. That would be a miracle, yes, but a miracle within our power, our healing power.

Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance, by Leonard Peltier should be available at your local book store. It can also be obtained by way of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. Proceeds from books purchased through the LPDC go directly into the Leonard Peltier Defense Fund.

Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
P.O. Box 583
Lawrence, KS 66044
Phone: 785-842-5774 - FAX: 785-842-5796
Email:lpdc@idir.net

The book can also be purchased online by way of, "People's Paths Bookstore!"!
Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance
by Leonard Peltier / Harvey Arden (Editor) / Ramsey Clark (Preface)
Our Price: $16.07 You Save: $6.88 (30%) ~ Ships within 24 hours.
Published June 1999 / St. Martins Pr (Trade) / ISBN: 0312203543,
1st US Ed edition Hardcover (NAI/U.S. Government Relations)