“The only network larger than the network of pipelines in this country is the network of people willing to stand up to them.”–Akilah Sanders-Reed, organizer with the Power Shift Network.
The historic Standing Rock camps that formed last year in North Dakota, to some, may have seemed like an intense but brief anti-pipeline struggle. In fact, the movement has evolved into an emergent cross-border, intersectional coalition of camps, tribes, educators, artists, and others.
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Annabelle Marcovici
October 27, 2016: An unarmed water protector confronts a phalanx of riot police and private security personnel who were attempting to evict Standing Rock’s Treaty Camp, which stood in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Named for the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, which codified Sioux ownership over land through which the pipeline now snakes, the camp was a declaration of indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights.
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January 20, 2017: Over President Donald Trump’s Inauguration weekend in Washington, D.C., #noDAPL protesters (including some from the Standing Rock encampments) join a coalition of activists calling themselves #DisruptJ20, which led marches and direct actions meant to disrupt inauguration festivities.
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Annabelle Marcovici
April 8, 2017: Immediately after the Standing Rock camps were forcibly evicted, indigenous youths hit the road in a repurposed school bus. As “The Rolling Resistance,” they spent several months traveling to raise awareness of indigenous environmental issues.
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Annabelle Marcovici
August 6, 2017: Horseback riders from the Kickapoo Nation lead the March to Give Keystone XL the Boot in Lincoln, Nebraska, in response to the Trump Administration’s decision to approve the previously rejected pipeline. They joined a diverse crowd that included farmers, ranchers, and tribal leaders.
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Annabelle Marcovici
August 11, 2017: Scott “Mountain Man” Pitney and Daniel Culver carry poles to build a yurt at Ma’iingan Camp, an Anishinaabe camp in Northern Minnesota. The camp is one of several that emerged in the past year to resist energy corporation Enbridge’s new Line 3 pipeline that could put one fifth of the world’s fresh surface water at risk of contamination.
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Annabelle Marcovici
August 13, 2017: Tents set up at Ma’iingan Camp provide shelter for the visitors and volunteers who come to help with such daily tasks as construction, cooking, and cleaning. Although they don’t anticipate having to accommodate as many people as were camped at Standing Rock, the camp’s capacity for visitors is an ongoing conversation.
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Annabelle Marcovici
August 21, 2017: Lish LaBarge marks herself and another water protector with handprints using mud from the Line 3 construction site during a direct action against the new pipeline. Three others locked themselves to construction equipment to shut down pipeline construction for the day. This was the first of many near-daily lockdowns meant to delay construction and raise national support for the resistance movement.