Are You Ready to Get Off the Plantation?

By YoNasDa LoneWolf | Last updated: Jan 24, 2012 - 9:34:48 AM

Greetings Relatives,

Through my travels in Native American communities, one question I receive often from tribal leaders is, “Indians have the land, but Blacks have the resources. When are you bringing our Black brothers and sisters?”

So, when are we ready to get off the plantation? In history, many Native Americans that were the first inhabitants, eyewitnessed the violent treatment of African slaves, and felt a similar sadness. Because of this, many African slaves befriended Native Americans and together they lived on allocated Native land together. They built communities and families. When the White slave masters were losing their slaves to Native Americans, some were forced to go to war and fight against the United States, while some tribes were forced to buy the African slaves from the slave master.

If we fast-forward to Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street in Greenwood, Oklahoma in 1900’s-1921 was a thriving Native American and Black community. In 1910 Black Indians owned 13 million acres of land, and much of the land was rich with oil. Racist White people burned down thriving banks, stores, and homes that Native Americans and Black Freedmen developed during this time.

'Are you ready to get off the plantation? Or are you comfortable with your home on land that isn’t really yours and a bank can come and take it anytime? Or the store you’re leasing, that any major corporation can buy out the “real” owner without your consent. Are you really free, slave?'

It was the first time White America witnessed the power of the Black and Red nation. They were scared! They knew that if it happened again, then they couldn’t control their African slaves through the Willie Lynch Project. So as America began growing and shifting they designed for the Native Americans to be as far away from Blacks as possible. Even today, it’s very difficult to find Native American communities, because they are either small in the Southern and Eastern region of America, or vast in land size but very far away from the inner cities, making it out of sight, out of mind.

So are you ready to get off the plantation?

In inner cities across the United States, Blacks have bought banks, homes, businesses within the confines of the United States laws and land. Do we really own that land that we made communities on? The laws we abide to in the city of Chicago, New York or even Los Angeles do they give us true freedom and sovereignty?

Let’s look at the definition of a Sovereign State: A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states.[1] It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither dependent on nor subject to any other power or state.[2] While in abstract terms a sovereign state can exist without being recognized by other sovereign states, unrecognized states will often find it hard to exercise full treaty-making powers and engage in diplomatic relations with other sovereign states.

Today, many Native American communities and tribes are sovereign. Are you ready to get off the plantation? Or are you comfortable with your home on land that isn’t really yours and a bank can come and take it anytime? Or the store you’re leasing, that any major corporation can buy out the “real” owner without your consent. Are you really free, slave?

Jan. 26-30, 2012 I am bringing a delegation of artists, community leaders, media to come alongside me as I go to visit my family, the Lakota tribe in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. I will bring a film crew to visually document this monumental trip. Never in the history of Pine Ridge, have they had influential people of this caliber come and meet, speak and perform for the young people of the tribe. We will host a conference at the Loneman Day School focusing on How To Eat To Live, Do For Self Financial Empowerment, Gang Intervention, Drug, Alchohol and Suicide Prevention, Positive Self-Empowerment, Hip Hop and the art, and technology.

Mary Weaslebear is a young woman who is assisting me on our events. Her passion is the young people of Pine Ridge. Eighty-five percent of the population is between 18-35 years old. So, she believes starting with the youth is the beginning on building a nation. Her goal is to build a $30k park with bathrooms, showers, laundromats for the children to wash their clothes. Pine Ridge, South Dakota is the poorest community in the United States. She’s not asking a lot just something, an avenue for young people to do something instead of drugs and alcohol. The name of her company is called Wiconi-Wakan “Life is Sacred,” it’s a suicide prevention movement. (www.wiconi-wakan.com) My cousin, Babe Poorbear, whom I featured in previous articles is also assisting me as well. I will update you during our Annual Saviours’ Day Convention during the Indigenous Nations Alliance-MMM “Bridging the Families workshop on February 24-26 in Chicago, IL. We are beginning to develop our relationships, our partnerships, the marriage of the Black and the Red. So, I ask you when the time is now, are you ready to get off of the plantation and began a new nation with our Native American brothers and sisters?

Mitakoye Oyasin (All My Relations)

The Final Call