"Being an original person from this land, I’m conscious of how we are founded on this cracked foundation. No matter how many houses we build, paint jobs, renovations, it’s not going to matter. Until we address the issues, what we are doing by working with the law is a form of harm reduction."
Krystal Two Bulls, an Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne organizer from Lame Deer, Montana, has been actively involved in resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline. She is a coordinator for the Drop the Mic (military-industrial complex) campaign at About Face: Veterans Against the War, a group of post-9/11 service members and veterans organizing against war, militarism, and the military-industrial complex. She is a U.S. Army veteran who served for eight years. She is also the founder and director of Voices of the Sacred, an organization dedicated to the empowerment and leadership development of Native youth and veterans.
In 2019, the indigenous warrior Krystal TwoBulls answered the call to defend sacred indigenous land against the laying of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. Using the logistical skills she had learned in the US military, she became one of the leaders of the movement – and was devasted to find herself named in a “Strategic Litigation against Public Participation” suit brought by the company. Krystal describes, vividly, how the charges of racketeering disabled her, psychologically and politically, despite having no grounds. She also speaks of the value of the “Protect the Protest” movement that coalesced around the defendants – and how important it is to know the law, and use it, even if it is built on the “cracked foundation” that dispossessed and slaughtered her people.