Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltieris a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement. In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigationagents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation...
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth12 September 1944
father home men
What I am is a father, a grandfather, a great grandfather, and an artist. I am a man who loves his people and wants to go home.
lying voice guilt
Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, "I didn't do it." Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies.
illegal probation unfortunate
In them days, it was just still not illegal to kill an Indian. If you killed an Indian, you'd be very unfortunate if you got probation - most of them were released immediately.
jail justice people
They still don't want to admit to the world that this isn't the best and the fairest and most equal justice system. And that they are guilty of railroading people into jail. They don't want to, or never will, admit these things.
inspirational believe one-thing
You can't believe one thing and do another. What you believe and what you do are the same thing.
children believe government
I do not believe Federal Government fear me at all, they know the truth. They know I am not a dangerous person, they hold me as a hostage to discourage other people from possibly standing up to their valued system. In their minds, right or wrong the public is expected to lay down for them. You see examples of this, at the Ruby Ridge massacre and the Waco massacre, where they killed all those children and group members.
thinking justice receiving
I think only a massive public outcry would result in my receiving any measure of justice.
government constitution-of-the-united-states innocence
The United States government can indict you on something, and now you've got to prove your innocence. And that's not the Constitution of the United States.
believe native-american long
There is probably a high percentage of Native Americans as well as non-Indians who feel that participating in this greater American economy that you mentioned is and has become a recipe for disaster in the long term, because the response to social and environmental problems has been responded to with a drug mentality, which is to say, anything for the quick fix. And it has trained the public to always believe they are one purchase away from happiness.
suicide rooms needs
Ultimately, I would like to say yes, conditions have improved, but there is still vast room for more improvement; we are still the poorest of the poor. And we are still statistically considered to be extremely disrupted culturally, and have extreme health needs in many areas, as well as high suicide rates and infant mortality rates.
past people political
In the past, when we were initially organizing to bring about changes, our elders had little or no political experience. However, today, most of those American Indian Movement organ-izers are the elders. They are quite adept at bringing attention to the public about any attacks upon our people.
fighting rights people
A political prisoner is someone who is out fighting for his or her people's rights and freedom and is imprisoned for that alone.
innocence guilty
We each begin in innocence. We all become guilty.
together needs
We need to do more than just what is right. We need to join together and right what is wrong.