Defenders of the Black Hills
Sept, 2012 Quarterly Newsletter
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We just completed our Tenth Annual Prayer Gathering for the Black Hills. It was an emotional event especially for JoAnne Tall-Flynn, Betty Janis, and Charmaine White Face as it was held close to the place where the First Black Hills Prayer Gathering was held in 2002. These three grandmothers, all with rheumatoid arthritis, laughed at the way they helped each other, those many years ago, to walk up and down over some small gullies and mounds to reach the sacred place where they prayed. They were the only three, along with reporter, Jim Kent, and Fawn, Betty's daughter, who were at that first gathering to pray for the good health of the Black Hills.
Great News !!Hello Everyone, Great news! One of our friends and allies, Michael Marriott with Nuclear Information Resource Service was able to stop a new nuclear power plant from being built. That affects us here, at the start of the nuclear cycle, where they begin with the mining. It also helps the whole world as there is too much nuclear radioactivity already hurting too many people, food, and water. (Please see article below.) The second great piece of news is from a Press Release sent by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. The Reynold's family has accepted ernest money from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to purchase Reynolds Prairie, or sacred Pe' Sla. We are grateful to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe for doing everything they can to save this sacred place. They still need donations. The Prairie Hills Audubon Society is offering $10 memberships to their organization, with all new member fees going to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe for Pe'Sla. If you wish to join the Prairie Hills Audubon Society and also contribute to Pe' Sla, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . If you wish to donate directly to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe for Pe'Sla, please send your donations to President Rodney Bordeaux for Pe'Sla, PO Box 430, Rosebud, SD 57570 or go to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe's Website. Reminder: Prayer Walk and Gathering for the Black Hills and especially for Pe' Sla, Sept. 22, Saturday, beginning a caravan at 10:00 AM from the Mother Butler Center, 221 Knollwood Dr., Rapid City, SD. It is about a one hour drive to the place we will begin our prayers. Everyone is invited. Potluck following the prayers.
Pe Sla also known as Reynolds' PrairieHello Defenders, The following is information collected and sent by Nancy Hilding, the chairperson of Prairie Hills Audubon Society. We have been encouraging comments on the South Rochford Road for a number of years. Now, the Reynold's family is selling land that they say they own due to the illegal homesteading allowed by the US federal government in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the March 3rd Act of 1871, and Article VI of the US Constitution.
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"Defenders of the Black Hills is a group of volunteers without racial or tribal boundaries whose mission is to preserve, protect, and restore the environment of the 1851 and 1868 Treaty Territories, Treaties made between the United States and the Great Sioux Nation."
Speaking about radioactive fallout, the late President John F. Kennedy said,
"Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby who may be born long after we are gone, should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."
July 26, 1963 upon signing the ban on above ground nuclear tests
"The radiation levels in parts I visited with my students were higher than those in the evacuated zones around the Fukushima Nuclear disaster...." Nuclear Physics Professor Kimberly Kearfott, University of Michigan, in comparing the readings obtained in northwestern South Dakota at the Cave Hills open-pit, abandoned uranium mines.
"It must always be remembered that the various Indian tribes were once independent and sovereign nations, and that their claim to sovereignty long predates that of our own government."
Thurgood Marshall, US Supreme Court Justice
(McClanahan v. Sate Tax Commission, 1973)