Hero #006: Dale “Happy” American Horse … (05/28/16)
Dale “Happy” American Horse Jr. is a Native American (Lakota Sioux) activist, who gained notoriety by being one of the first Dakota Access Pipeline protestors (known as Water Protectors) to engage in an act of open civil disobedience for the cause …
On August 31, 2016, after people from all over the United States had been gathering from all over the country to support the Standing Rock Sioux and their fight against Energy Transfer Partners (who were trying to build a pipeline through unceded Indian lands, including through and under burial grounds and other Lakota Sioux sacred sites), Dale “Happy” American Horse chained himself to a backhoe at an active pipeline construction site. For the next six hours, police could not remove him from the digger, and construction was completely halted for the day. American Horse remained peaceful yet resolute for the duration of his nonviolent action, mostly remaining silent, and yet regularly chanting “Mni Wiconi” – the main rallying cry for the Water Protectors – a Lakota phrase which means “Water is Life.” In the end, he was removed and charged with criminal trespass, obstructing government, and resisting arrest. And in the end, a combination of massive police brutality and political corruption saw the pipeline completed some eight months later – but not before that same police brutality and that same governmental corruption were exposed for all to see; and not before hundreds of thousands of people all over the world were inspired to join the fight against Native American discrimination, pipeline construction projects, and the fossil fuel industry in general.
“All this just for clean water. Why does it have to come down to this?” ~ Dale “Happy” American Horse
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