'Longest Walk 2' demands Native rights, respect of earth

By Johnnie Stevens
and
Sara Catalinotto

Jul 20, 2008

Two thousand people joined the Longest Walk 2 at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 11. This mobilization marks the 30th anniversary of the original Longest Walk, when thousands of Native Americans converged on the Capitol to defeat eleven pieces of legislation that would have terminated Native American tribal rights.

Longest Walk 2, July 11. Photo: Laura Ayers

LW2 began in San Francisco on Feb. 11, raising environmental injustice and global warming, protection of sacred sites, sovereignty, health concerns and cultural survival. The walk toured 8,000 miles, 26 states and 35 Indian nations. LW2 took two routes, northern and southern. The northern route was attacked by police while in Ohio last month. The southern route visited sites hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Indigenous people from North, South and Central America and the Pacific Islands, as well as people from South Africa, Europe, Australia and Asia, joined the walk. All generations were present, with youth visibly leading various aspects of the mobilization such as security and press work.

Delegations participated in Washington from the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Black Left Unity, Katrina Rita Diaspora Solidarity Caravan, American Indian Community House of New York City, All African Peoples’ Revolutionary Party, D.C. Peoples’ Media Center, Black Talk Radio and WBAI.

After a militant rally led by Longest Walk veterans, including dances and songs, Dennis Banks, founder of American Indian Movement, thanked everyone for their help throughout the walk. Dennis repeated the slogan, “All life is sacred. Clean up mother earth,” referring to walkers who had picked up thousand of bags of trash along the route.

The crowd grew as the walk picked up tourists and D.C. workers. At the Capitol, LW2 held a press conference featuring Banks and delegations from each nation on the walk, artist/activist Harry Belafonte and House Judiciary Chairperson John Conyers.

Banks presented Rep. Conyers with a Manifesto of Change along with the original manifesto from the 1978 Longest Walk, which Congress had refused at the time. The LW2 manifesto is a collection of voices the organizers had heard from communities across Turtle Island.

One of the sixteen resolutions attached to the manifesto calls on the U.S. government to free Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier, whose frame-up was also an issue in the 1978 Longest Walk. The section titled “Ongoing Colonization of Mother Earth’s Sacred Places” addresses in detail the abuse of the land by military testing and by multinational corporations who take out uranium, coal, copper and trees from predominantly Native territory and leave behind contaminated water and nuclear waste dumps. Another section rejects “the occupiers’ borders imposed on this land,” as well as “NAFTA and other policies [which] force our people from their land.”

Rep. Conyers thanked all who had joined the walk, saying, “This is the first struggle—the Indian people.” He acknowledged that past treaties have always been stepped on by the U.S. government. When Conyers said he would hold hearings on the LW2 manifesto in a full congressional session, the crowd erupted. Banks thanked Conyers, saying, “This is the first time that anyone from the U.S. Congress has acted on any Indian manifesto. This is already a victory!”

Banks then introduced Belafonte as one of Martin Luther King’s confidantes and a longtime friend of Indian people. Belafonte thanked Banks for inviting him to both Longest Walks, 1978 and 2008, and pledged to do all he can to support the LW2 manifesto.

LW2 continued July 12 at the Lincoln Monument with a Pow-Wow, welcoming all who were a part of the walk to join in a victory dance. Organizers ask that supporters stay in touch with their website (www.longestwalk.org) as the walkers return to their homes.