Minneapolis Native community gathers in prayer after intense week of ICE activity

The event was organized by NDN Collective, Many Shields Society and AIM’s Grand Governing Council.

“We came together to make a prayer of protection for all people and Mother Earth,” NDN Collective founder and Chief Executive Officer Nick Tilsen told Buffalo’s Fire. “This moment required us to come together from all walks of life. We need to work towards a goal of getting our tribal nations, the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis to issue a ban on Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

He added, “We wanted to honor the beautiful life of Renee Good whose life was tragically taken while looking out for the community. We prayed for Renee, her family and her spirit. We asked our ancestors to walk by our side while we organize and protect community.”

Looking Horse founded the World Peace and Prayer Day in 1996. The purpose of the event, which is held annually on the summer solstice, is to honor all sacred sites and to invite all faiths to pray for the planet.

After a week of what federal officials have called the “largest immigration operation ever” and Wednesday’s shooting of Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, thousands of people have marched in the streets and confronted various staging areas of ICE activity in the metro area.

There are several accounts of Native people, including four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, being detained. Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out issued a statement saying the tribe is working with Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan to determine their whereabouts. On Thursday a Red Lake Nation descendant was also detained and later released the same day.

Cameras and media were prohibited from recording during the prayer. Several speakers, including Mitch Walking Elk, Mary Lyons, Gaby Strong and Lisa Bellanger, spoke of the importance of prayer and how it has sustained the heritage and culture of Indigenous people.

“Our prayers were the only thing they could not take away from us,” said Bellanger, director of the AIM’s Grand Governing Council. “Our prayers have carried us to this moment, to this day.”

After the conclusion of the community prayer, Crow Bellecourt sang the AIM Song and shared his life journey as a singer. “As a singer, we don’t sing the same song twice in the same day, but I will always sing this one more than once in a day,” he said. His father, the late Clyde Bellecourt, was one of the founding members of the AIM in 1968.

Pow Wow Grounds, a Native owned and operated coffee shop, has been serving as a staging location for volunteers, patrollers and legal observers. Many organizations and people have dropped off food items, firewood and other supplies. NDN Collective has provided a “Know Your Rights” training at the Minneapolis American Indian Center.

“As this is happening, it is a call to the relative in all of us to show up, to respond, to help and to support in some way,” Strong, vice president of NDN Collective, told Buffalo’s Fire. “This is the frontline. We need to remember the different dimensions of power, and spiritual power is one of them. That is what brought us to the Twin Cities.”