75 March On Behalf Of Indian Activist
About 75 people marched and rallied on behalf of Leonard Peltier, the South Dakota Indian activist imprisoned for the 1975 murders of two FBI agents.
Supporters from around Western Washington marched along Pacific Avenue on Saturday after the city held its annual Daffodil Parade.
“What does it take after 20 years to find justice in this country?” asked Arthur J. Miller at the rally outside Union Station. Miller, a member of the Leonard Peltier Support Group in Tacoma, organized the event.
Peltier, an Ojibwa-Lakota Indian, was convicted in 1977 of killing agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams during a June 26, 1975 shootout at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Joseph Stuntz from Port Angeles, an Indian, also died.
Peltier was a leader of the militant American Indian Movement. His supporters contend he was framed by the federal government, and that he has unfairly been denied the chance for parole.
On Saturday, participants burned sage to purify each other before the start of the nearly mile-long march. They carried banners with such messages as “Free Peltier.” Some sang traditional Indian songs and banged on drums. One woman even brought along her pygmy goat.
At the rally outside Union Station, the Olympia group Food Not Bombs provided participants with free vegetable soup and scrambled tofu sandwiches.
Several people, including a tribal elder, spoke at the rally about Peltier.
“No matter where I go, I’ll take him in my heart,” said Rev. Keith Johnson, an elder in the Alaskan Tlingit tribe.