Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance

Youth runners stop at Bear Butte for prayers before 400-mile relay

Norhern Cheyenne runners circle up for prayer at Bear Butte in South Dakota, Jan. 8, 2010.
Norhern Cheyenne runners circle up for prayer at Bear Butte in South Dakota, Jan. 8, 2010.

The runners from Northern Cheyenne Reservation left Lame Deer, Mont. yesterday. The group of some 100 people stopped at Bear Butte in South Dakota Friday afternoon for prayers before the group caravan continued on to Fort Robinson in Nebraska. The kids are going to begin a 400-mile relay back to Montana tonight, beginning at 10:30 p.m. They are doing this to commemorate the past while looking to the future. See some of my previous posts for a more information on the run. The group will spend the day at Fort Robinson as part of a day of education. A number of speakers and presenters will talk to the youths about leadership and tribal history related to the January 1879 breakout from Fort Robinson where the Cheyenne had been imprisoned for relocation to Oklahoma. They broke out of the jail and tried to go back  to their homelands in Montana. Most of the them were killed by the U.S. cavalry.

Some made it home.

Jodi Rave
Jodi Rave Spotted Bear

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.