Wiyaka Eagleman on the left wearing the bright yellow tee shirt. That's Rick Weiland in the blue shirt.
Twenty-seven-year-old Wiyaka Eagleman registered 50 Lakota voters on the Rosebud Sioux reservation of South Dakota last week. Then he walked and hitched rides for more than 40 miles to deliver the completed forms to the Tripp County Clerk just in time to meet the Monday deadline. Then he walked and hitched home.
Eagleman (Sicangu Oyate Lakota) grew up on the sprawling reservation, one of nine in the state, home to the Sioux Nation's Upper Brulé division, the tribe of the war chief Spotted Tail, a relative of Crazy Horse. As a child, Wiyaka carried five-gallon buckets of water from an outside pump because there was no indoor plumbing. He remembers that as the best-tasting water.
Wiyaka, whose name means Feather Boy in Lakota, finished the 10th grade and then went into the Job Corps. At 18 he moved to the city to work as a roofer during the summer. After culinary academy training he worked as a cook during the winter.
This past June something changed in Wiyaka's mind and heart. He says he felt he needed to return to the reservation. He was particularly troubled by what was happening to his people because of the threat of the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if approved, will carry tar sands petroleum through the state from Canada to Texas. Wiyaka was caught in what he called a struggle. In the city there are jobs and housing. On the reservation there are not. He was conflicted over whether to help himself or his people. Soon, he decided to go back to the Rosebud even though he had no place to live:
"We need jobs on the rez. We've had a hard lifestyle. I put aside my feelings of hate and anger because of the genocide. Somebody should talk about what our people need here. I would work for my people, cut wood labor-free, but I need gas to do that and there's no money here."
Wiyaka Eagleman in the tipi he lives in.
Upon returning home he first met with his uncle, Russell Eagle Bear, who is a Rosebud Tribal Council member. Eagle Bear is a
strong voice against the pipeline. His uncle advised Wiyaka that he should think of the next generations and should live his dream. So the young man joined the
Shield the People movement that erects tipi camps to stop progress along the designated pipeline right-of-way. He's been living with others in a camp of six tipis the past four months on Highway 83 about 30 miles from the town of Mission. Fortunately, the group has arrangements to have access to a trailer for the bitter South Dakota winter.
The members of the community nourish each other, they share resources. But those resources are thin. In Wiyaka's tipi camp there is one laptop which they all share.
This is the first year Wiyaka has become engaged in politics. "This is how we change things," he says. He takes the work seriously. While gathering those voter registrations, Wiyaka covered more than 100 miles traveling to Parmelee, thru the Rosebud and then on to the county seat in Winner. He set out on foot but managed to hitch four rides. When I ask Wiyaka if he stood and thumbed for the rides or did he keep walking, he replies, "I walk like a warrior; you just keep walking."
If Wiyaka can do this, against heavy odds, then you can spend an hour making GOTV phone calls or chipping in $3. Please help get out the reservation vote in South Dakota. Contribute to South Dakota NDN Election Efforts PAC so American Indian voices can be heard!
There's more to this story below the orange fluffy frybread.
One ride ended after just one mile because the white rancher who picked him up turned out to be a Republican. He says the rancher was nice enough at first but as soon as Wiyaka mentioned that he was a Democrat on his way to drop off voter registrations the man abruptly pulled over and let him out. Wiyaka shocks me a little when he says he wants to find that rancher again and apologize. Why? To say he's sorry that the rancher didn't believe him that things are going to change. That his kids' futures depend on it. "Someday he'll see what I mean."
Wiyaka says his friends and family admire what he is doing and want him to keep it up. He says it brought a tear to his eye to hear that from them. "I want my people to start loving themselves," he says. "Figure out where they come from and who they are."
For the next 10 days, right up through Election Day, Wiyaka will be striving to get people to the polls—all those he registered and others. That won't be the end of his political work, however, whether on elections, on the Keystone XL pipeline or on other matters of importance to his people.
Wiyaka Eagleman has now become an American Indian activist. Perhaps he will become one of our famous ones.
(Meteor Blades contributed to the creation of this diary.)
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Previous diaries that include more background on this project as well as past suppression of the Indian vote are linked below:
• Here's how we're going to help win South Dakota by kos.
• When Natives vote Democrats win. You can help 9 reservations in South Dakota GOTV to save the Senate by navajo
• Going in big for South Dakota GOTV by kos
• Control of the Senate runs through South Dakota reservations, and you're helping GOTV by Meteor Blades
• What an awesome bunch of GOTV activists in South Dakota. Aren't you excited to support them? by kos
• Republicans grudgingly admit their South Dakota candidate is bombing by kos
• New Weiland ad, and what our South Dakota GOTV donations are buying by kos
• Boosted by your donations, campaign to get out the Indian vote in South Dakota showing good results by Meteor Blades
• South Dakota ground game fleshes out as GOP rushes in reinforcements by kos
• Daily Kos pays people to break the law! Read the latest efforts to get out the SD reservation vote by navajo
Here is the current fundraising status of the
South Dakota NDN Election Efforts PAC.