Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-11-27 Thursday

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Democracy Now! Thursday, November 27, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Imagine living in a cubicle larger than some people's closets for all those years. And they finally are able to walk out of it. For me, it was unbelievable that this is actually happening to me. But, I mean, the feeling of, wow, I can go, wow, I'll be home. In this Democracy Now Special, we spend the hour with longtime indigenous leader Leonard Peltier. In February, he was released from federal prison in Florida after spending nearly 50 years behind bars for a crime he says he did not commit. President Biden, on his final day in office, commuted Peltier.

sentence to home confinement. We'll speak to Leonard Peltier about his life of resistance from attending an Indian boarding school as a child to his years with the American Indian movement, aimed to his life in prison. We interviewed him at his home on his 81st birthday weekend. What really kept me strong with my anger. I was extremely angry about what they did to me and my people. We'll also speak to Leonard Pelleyer. Peltier's daughter, Marquita Shields Peltier. She was just a toddler when her father was imprisoned in 1976. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

In this special broadcast, we spend the hour with longtime indigenous activist Leonard Peltier. In February, he was released from a federal prison. and in Florida after spending nearly half a century behind bars for a crime, he says he did not commit. President Biden, on his last day in office, commuted Peltier's life sentence to home confinement. Biden's decision followed mounting calls by tribal leaders and supporters around the world in a decades-long community-led campaign fighting for his freedom. In the 1970s, Peltier was involved with the American Indian movement, known as AIM. In 1975, two FBI agents and one young AIM activist were killed in a shootout

on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Two AIM members were later arrested for killing the agents. At the trial, the jury acquitted them. Leonard Peltier was arrested later, tried separately and convicted. Peltier has always maintained his innocence. Notable supporters of Leonard Peltier over the years have included South African President Nelson Mandela, Pope Francis and Amnesty International.

Supporters of Peltier say his trial was marked by gross FBI and federal prosecutorial misconduct, including the coercion of witnesses, fabricated testimony, and suppressed exculpatory evidence. After being released in February, Leonard Peltier returned home to live on the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Reservation in Bell Court, North Dakota. On September 12th, Leonard Peltier celebrated. his 81st birthday. People gathered throughout the day, visiting him and calling from around the world to celebrate. That night and the next day, we spoke to Leonard Peltier in his living room

in his first extended TV radio broadcast interview since his release from prison. Hi, I'm Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, in the home of Leonard Peltier, just recently freed from prison after 49 years. Plus two months. Plus two months. I have spoken to you so many times, Leonard, in prison, in various prisons. Several of them, Supermax prisons. It is quite astonishing to be here with you in person.

Tell us where we are. Where are we sitting? We're sitting in my home. that was given to me by my supporters. This was not given to me by the tribe or the government had nothing to do with it. I was released by Biden under commutation of my sentence and home confinement.

Actually, what happened was I was taken out of one prison cell and really put into another type of prison. But this is my home now. This is my home. So it's a million times better. Wait, what do you mean when you say you were taken out of your prison cell

after more than 49 years? And you're saying that you're not completely free? No, no. I'm on very restrictive restrictions. Even to go to the post office, I got to call my, I call her my handler. I have to call her to go to the post office. Then when I get back, I have to call her and tell her I'm back.

Or if I go anything, if I go shopping or whatever, I have to do that. If I have to go 100 miles past the nation, I don't call my place a reservation either. It's where nations of people. I have to get a pass. usually from Washington, D.C. to go to medical, usually medical or religious ceremonies on different Native nations. So let's go back to that moment when you were in that prison cell in Coleman in Florida, and you got word that President Biden had commuted your sentence. It was just hours before he was leaving office. Can you tell us about that process, how it took

place? Well, as I went through the years filing for pardons and stuff, Ronald Reagan was the first one to promise to leave me, pardon me. Somebody in Washington stopped it. It's only one organization that could have stopped it and didn't have the power to stop it, but still somehow or in power enough to, or they can override the president of the United States, our Congress. It's the FBI. And Reagan promised let me go.

And the FBI intervened, and that was stopped. And Bill Clinton and Obama. And finally we get to Biden. And Biden, there was pressure put on. him from all over the world. Almost every tribal nations here in the United States filed for my release, demanding my release, the United Nations. The United Nations did a full report on my case and they demanded that I be released immediately and to be paid, quote, unquote, hundreds of Congress and senators and millions of

people. Then the Pope. And the Pope, the last Pope and the current Pope. And world leaders, many world leaders, demanded my release. The Nobel Peace Laureate Bishop, Archbishop, Desmond Tutu. Yes, I was also nominated and nominated four times because of my work from prisons,

for a Nobel Prize and they're bored and everything granted it but somebody intervened again so four times I lost that I think somebody was pushing Biden to stop

any possibility of signing a pardon so he didn't sign it until the last moment and actually a day and a half before he actually signed it and his term was

completed. I just took that position that no, he's not going to do this. And I just kind of laid back to myself and I thought to myself, well, I guess I die here. And this is the only ultimate sacrifice I can make. And I have to accept it. I have no other choice. And as I laid there and thinking about it, other people came by, even guards would tell me, don't give up, Leonard, don't give up, and other prisoners. And some of them prisoners were telling

me that Leonard, he's got to know that if he doesn't sign this, this is political suicide for the Democratic Party, because there's millions of people that are going to break away from this if he doesn't. And so I was laying there, and

I was thinking, well, let's try one more thing. So I called a representative of mine that was working closely with the Biden administration. We had native people. We had native people in his administration who were communicating with Biden. And I said, tell him, give me a commentation on my sentence, and home can find that. So she called and did this, and that's what I ended up with, and that's what I'm living under right now. How did you hear that you were going to be free?

Well, it was kind of believable. In the immediate moment, I thought somebody was just playing games at me and I thought ah, I'm going to wake up and this is all a dream and I'm in the cell and I'll

be in there. And I really didn't believe until actually I walked in the house here. What was it like to leave, Coleman? Well, imagine living in a cubicle larger than some people's closets for all those years, and they finally are able to walk out of there. I mean, it was just, for me it was unbelievable that this is actually happening to me.

but I mean the feeling of wow I can go wow I'll be home I won't be able to I won't have to go to bed in this cold cell with one blanket and I won't have to smell my sully going to the bathroom I won't have to eat cold meals is this really over for me? Is this really going to be over for me? And there was disbelief. A lot of it was disbelief, really. And now we're sitting here in your living room, surrounded by the paintings you did in prison. Yes.

You are an artist extraordinaire, maybe about to have a gallery showing in New York through the years you sold your paintings. Talk about painting in prison and how you came to be a painter. Well, see, a lot of people think we were allowed to paint ourselves and stuff. We were not.

We were not allowed. They had an art room, hobby craft area, and one of the hobby crafts was painting, so you have to sign up for that. A lot of people think that all the art supplies was given to you by the prison, the hobby crafter. That's not true either.

We have to buy our own. And I went and signed up immediately to go into the art hobby craft. And I used to go to every day. And that's what I did. I painted and painted and painted. So I was able to create my own style and everything. Yeah. Can you see your paintings now?

No, two months ago, I think now. I lost 80% of my vision, and I'm in the process of hopefully get my eyesight, return, treat it and returned. We're spending the hour with the indigenous leader, longtime political prisoner Leonard Peltier. He was released in February from prison after nearly half a century behind bars. Coming up, he talks about being put in an Indian boarding school as a child, his activism, and more. We'll also speak with his daughter, Marquita Shields, Peltier. She was just a toddler when her father was imprisoned in 1976. And life will flow as long as the grass grows and the water runs.

And while I'm here on Earth, I'm here on earth, rejoice in it's worth Because freedom is free You can't Freedom on the street But you can't

control all the feeling No way Because street on the street Freedom is free. Freedom is free. You can take that away from nobody. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report.

I'm Amy Goodman. We're continuing with our conversation with longtime indigenous activist Leonard Peltier. in Belcourt, North Dakota. I spoke to him there on his 81st birthday weekend on the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Cree Reservation. He was released in February from the federal prison in Florida after nearly half a century behind bars. So take us back in time. Introduce us to you, starting by saying your name, who your parents were, the nations they were a part of. your family, where you lived growing up.

Okay, my name is, English name is Leonard Peltier. I'm 81 years old as of yesterday. My father is Chippewa Cree from this reservation, this nation right here. I keep saying reservations because we were taught from childhood that we were all reservations. were Indians, and we're not Indians. And this is not a reservation. We made treaties with the United States government,

and the Constitution says they shall only make treaties with sovereign nations. So we're sovereign nations. We're not Indians, as they claim to be, as they claim we are. And my mother is from Fort Totten. But again, that's not the real name. The real name is Spirit Lake. And that's of the Lakota, Dakota people. I was raised majority of my life here with my grandparents,

which is usually the traditional way of my people. The grandparents will take the children and raise them. But when Grandpa died, Grandma had no way to support us. So she went to the agency here to ask for help. And in retaliation, they took us. and put us in a boarding school. What boarding school? Wapton, North Dakota,

1953. I was there until 1950, for three years, 56. And it was extremely brutal conditions. How old were you? I was nine then when I went. Talk about the point of these boarding schools. Was your haircut? Did they stop you from speaking your language?

They did all that was the purpose of the schools is to take the Indian out of the Indians is what they literally was the order. They took us to the boarding schools. The first thing they did was cut all our buds cut, our hair took it all off, and then we put us and took us into the shower. We showered and we come out of the shower

and we were poured all over our body's DDT, as you know, that's poisonous. They poured DDT over your body? They poured DDT with all the cans on your head and the whole body. And then they give us an issue of clothes, bedding, and assigned us to a bed. And that was the beginning of our treatment. It was extremely, extremely strict school. and beatings were regular to, for any little violation of those rules. I might have been a little hot-headed, I don't know,

but when I first got there, there was a group they called themselves the resistors, and I immediately joined them, and I became part of the resistors. So we would sneak behind the gymnasium, and we would talk our language, we would sing some song, even do some prayers. Yeah. And if we got caught, we got the beat out of us. You wrote in your book, Prison Writings,

My Life is My Sun Dance, that you consider these boarding schools your first imprisonment. Yes, it was. It was. I found the rules more strict. then when I went, ended up in prison. So you go to this residential school

with your cousin and sister for three years. Where do you come back to? And how did you maintain your language and your culture? Well, I came back here to live with my father, and they were still living in log cabins, no electricity, no running water. We had to haul water. We had to haul water.

and we only had $55 to live on, which was my father's World War II military benefits. And that's what we had to live on. And we were facing the time of terminations. The United States government wrote a bill, passed by Congress, signed by the president of terminations. In 1956, it was supposed to be completed by 1985. And the first one to be terminated was the Menominee Indians of Wisconsin. They had millions of making, millions of prime land, timber, and lakes to make hunting lodges and other things out there.

It was beautiful, which they did today. They got it all those things. out there today. But they came and took all that land from them. Then they come here in 1958. Was there 58? Yeah, 58. I was 13 years old then.

And they came and told us, we have been terminated and we have to accept it. We were supposed to be the second reservation to be terminated. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Cree. Yes. And my father and all of them and their generation. A lot of people left on. relocation. They said, it's hopeless. We can't fight these people. They're too powerful. They're just too powerful. It's, you know, maybe life will be better over there and stuff like this on this relocation. So they picked this city to go to. A lot of them went to Washington State in Oregon. And it was a small group of us stayed here and said, no, we're not leaving. So my dad in his generation said, well, What do you mean, then terminate it?

You can't come here and tell us that we've got to leave and you're going to just terminate us as a race of people and tell us that we no longer exist. Go f*** yourself. Come on, let's fight it out. And literally, they were, I was proud of them. I was 13 years old. They stopped all provisions.

One little girl died over here from malnutrition. And that's what really got everybody angry. So they thought they would starve you out? Yeah, they were making conditions so hard that we were accepting termination. We were leaving. A lot of people took it. Well, at least my kids won't starve to death. And the BIA reversed its decision?

They reversed their decision and gave us $50. Vouchers? Vouchers to buy groceries here in Rala. Everybody got the whole reservation, got $50. And they didn't disband the reservation. No, they got the hell out of because we told them we're going to fight them. So this was really the beginning of the Red Power movement and the founding of AIM? Well, I guess so, and so many were else.

The American Indian movement, which you want to rename, the American. But they were doing that for, I mean, my people have been fighting back for 500 years, Amy. But the modern day. Yeah, the modern day stuff. But no, we went to war with them. We went to all kinds of different levels of resistance. Resistance, you know. So talk about the founding of AIM, the American Indian movement,

which you today would like to rename the American Indigenous. Well, I was involved in a number of different organizations before I joined AIMs. And one of the biggest ones that I was, I helped organize the United Tribes of All Indians and Washington State and we took over

Fort Lawton that one of the treaties that we were pushing them days actually our people was older people were pushing this too but they just passed

all of our knowledge came from traditionalists that's with policies the American Indian movement we followed there there first of all people got to understand The American Indian movement policy is they can't come on to this reservation

and they're dictating their policy. They have to be invited by the traditionalists or tribal government or what else. We can't just go onto a reservation saying, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. No, we can't do that and we don't do that. We have to be invited first. So anyway, this was before I joined the American Indian Movement. I was involved with the fishing and hunting struggles over there. That was a big area that they really fought hard and got really...

Fishing and hunting rights. Yes, treaty rights. In fact, Marlon Branda got arrested with us in 1955. He got arrested on one of the lakes. I wasn't there, but he got arrested fishing and hunting with natives out there. So talk about the occupation of the BIA offices in Washington, moving on to Wounded Knee in Pine Ridge. Well, our resistance became extremely popular.

American Union was growing, and not just here in America, Canada, Central America. She said a lot of foolbloods alter Central America, more than people, more than here in the United States. And we were uniting with all of them, all those natives across this country, across this whole continent, I mean. And we were uniting, we were pulling them together with the American Union.

That's why we became a threat to the government. And they, later on, after I got arrested, this one guy was telling us, him he said you know I just went down to Mexico someplace one of them towns and he said they were organizing resistance and stuff like this he said I was down there down to visit him he said I went to this old this guy was told me was there there he was some kind of medicine man or something so I went down and visit him and said I went into his place

and to his kind of a hot like home I guess and he said what do I I see. He said, I see your poster on one of the walls. That's so far back. But I wasn't, we went through all that stuff. And so anyway. But especially for young people to understand. I mean, you're talking about this critical moment of 1973, four and five. Sixies, actually. What's it? Started with the 60s. And also the height of the anti-war movement. And the role and the effect of the anti-war movement. And the role and the effect of the anti-war. war movement on the Native American movement and vice versa. If you can talk about those critical moments. We were, I was, and others were, a lot of us, natives were, we were also involved in the peace marches and with the blacks and the anti-war movements and things like that. We were involved in all that stuff too, but we were working on trying to get their support

and they were working on trying to get our support then the hippies came out and the hippies really helped us the hippies did a lot to help us. They started dressing like natives, they started doing things like native people and a lot of them came from

very wealthy families. A lot of people hated them. That's one of the reason the government hated them is because they were really pushing the native issues. Culture and stuff I did. So the trail

of broken treaties, that was 1972. Explain what it does, which was a takeoff of the trail. We knew that we had to get to get the government to start honoring our treaties because they never honored our treaties. And

the only way we could do this is to go right straight to Washington. And so we organized a a group, we call it the Trail of Broken Treaties. And we all organized from all over the country. They sent representatives and old cars.

We had all, nobody had new cars in the days. And we all turned, we all went to Washington. You went? Of course I did. Of course, I was there too. This is, of course, a takeoff on the Trail of Tears. And most people in our schools, and maybe less so, especially now, will ever even know what the Trail of Tears was.

Right, right, precisely. That was all past. Everything we did, we called it well like the Trail of Broken Treaties. That was done on the Trail of Tears and a long walk, all the other events like that that happened. It wasn't just a Trail of Tears. People have to understand it. The Trail of Tears was just one of them that became so well-known

because I think the 10,000 people died on that. And just they're laying alongside the trails and stuff from dying from sickness, malnutrition, all that stuff on the trail that tears. That's why I guess. And this was under President Andrew Jackson? Yes, yeah. The president who President Trump Reveered.

He was an order, yeah. He was a hater. And so we, we, we, ever vented, we organized, we organized on there's basically the same policies of exposing

what was done in the past and continued to be done. And we still find, it's still happening today, Amy. And the cold, had made a public statement about Native people that we didn't kill enough of them Indians. That's a very dangerous thing to say about anybody, because there's a bunch of nuts out there, like, you know, you could take one of them haters and everything.

I mean, he could end up killing a lot of innocent natives for, just because of those type of words. You've got a president trying to do away with our treaties. If our treaties go, we go. This is the only thing to prove we are a sovereign nation and a race of people. And if that goes, we go as a race of people. So it's not, I mean, it's not ending for us. We're still in danger. Yeah, you see it happening in the streets.

You know, I mean, right today. Are looking at what they're doing in Palestine, killing women. children, babies, unborn babies. That's what they did to us, man. And here it is, still happening. So 52 years ago, 1973, the start of the American Indian movement, 71-day occupation of the village of Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge Reservation, occupation helping draw international attention to the plight of Native Americans, the U.S. government responding to the occupation with a full military siege that included armored personnel carriers, F4, phantom jets, U.S. Marshals, FBI, state, and local enforcement during the occupation, two

sue men shot dead by federal agents and a black civil rights activist Ray Robinson went missing. The FBI confirmed in 2014 decades later that Ray Robinson had been. been killed during the standoff. Most people don't know about this history. No. Maybe they've heard the book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. So can you talk about Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee,

especially for young people who don't know the history? Well, I was in jail during the beginning of Wounded Knee, but I got out, it was about halfway true. Then I went up there, and I helped pack in stuff into Wounded Knee, and I stayed out there on the outside forces. After we made all those trips to Washington

and all stuff to all those other demonstrations and all those promises, they were going to do this and do that, they were going to investigate everything, all of our acquisitions and all that stuff. And we soon found out, we knew anyway, but we soon found out that it was all lied. They weren't going to investigate. And they didn't.

And so finally the elders and the chiefs made the decision to go to Wounded Knee. AIM had no part in that decision. We cannot go any place in the Indian country and make policies. We can't. That is not us. We can't do that now. And we can't go unless we're invited by those people. and they just got fed up with so many more false promises and what was happening.

They were being terrorized by a group, organized by a mercenary group on my ad. They were provided with intelligence, armored, producing ammunition, sophisticated weapons, surveillance, and stuff like this, automobiles and stuff. And the leader made that, admitted that on the national interview. So, you know, that's all true. They tried to deny it at first. But they called themselves the Guardians of the Oval of the Nation. And the goons. The goons.

Dick Wilson and all of them. Nixon ordered an 82nd Arabian. airborne to go and investigate what's going on down there. And if there was, if they were, like the government was claiming that we were communists and Marxists and we were being financed by the communists, they were to go out there and wipe us out. When Nixon's got the 82nd Airborne, 802nd Airborne involved in it, we filed a lot suit and took us 10 years, but we got all this information out of the files that they had

to turn over to us, right? And we found that they had went to the armory and checked out 250,000 rounds of various caliber ammunition, different sophisticated weaponry, armored personnel carriers and finances and surveillance and stuff like that. See, that was all the illegal. And that's how we found out a lot of, a lot of stuff about what they were doing there and was all illegal. If it had been left to Nixon, he was going to wipe us out. But he didn't because we heard his wife stepped forward and said, no, don't you do that. Now, still going back 50 years, what landed you in jail? I want to go to the words in democracy now in 2003. The occupation of wounded knees considered the beginning of what Oglala people refer to as the reign of terror from 73 to 76. Over 60 residents killed in this period. Murders went uninvestigated by the FBI, which had jurisdiction. The period culminating in the June 26th shootout for which Leonard Peltier, was imprisoned.

First of all, I don't know who the shooter is. Our shooters. And I wouldn't tell you if I did know. So I'm not going to tell you anything of that area. But I'll tell you, I'll speak on the other issues because it's public knowledge and it's been our attempts to continue to expose. that stuff but there were a lot of native people traditionalists whose homes were burned

whose houses were was drive-by shootings people were pulled over and and beaten and some shot some killed and those things are literally a record on this. We got records of all this stuff now. So people can't deny this stuff. The only ones that are denying this is the United States government and the FBI and people like that. But we faced a time called the reign of terror when they were getting away with all the shit. None of them were getting investigating. A lot of the older people that seen these people, identified them, but the FBI still wouldn't investigate. They were able to kill people at random. They were

getting away with it because they had no fear of being prosecuted. The only fear they had was of us, the American Indian movement, because we wouldn't take their shit every chance we got together. We got a confrontation

with them. And that's That's the only fear they had of anything, of any retaliations, any arrests or anything else. We're spending the hour with indigenous elder Leonard Peltier. He was released in February from prison after nearly 50 years behind bars. Stay with us. Yahweh, Yahweho, Yahweh O'Heyo.

Yawai, O'Hey, Yawai, Yawai, Yawai, O'i'i'i'i'i'i'a'i'i'a'i'i. Mani, too ma'i'i'a, o'i'i'i'i'i'shi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'ii'i'ii'an. This is democracy now, this is democracy now. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. As we continue our conversation with Indigenous leader, Leonard Pell

here, released to home confinement in February after nearly half a century behind bars. I asked him about his claims that his extradition from Canada and trial in the United States were marked by prosecutorial misconduct. Talk about the coerced testimony of Myrtle Poor Bear, who she is. Who is she? I mean, I know you didn't know her at the time. Well, I never know her. Her father came to my, was going to come testify at my trial, that she had a,

serious mental problems. And her sister was going to testify that on the day of the shootout, they were sitting there drinking beer, and we got this all on tape. And they were sitting there drinking beer, and they ran out of beer. And they were watching TV, she said. And they decided to make a run off the reservation because it was a dry reservation. No alcohol was allowed there. and so to go and buy some more beer

and come back and watch some more TV and they started driving down the road and all of a sudden a bulletin came over the radio big shootout in Oglala between the marshals, FBI, BIA cops, goon squads against the American Indian movement. So they were over 50 miles away.

Finally, Murdo admitted that she didn't know me. But she, her testimony said that... Her testimony in the grand jurors when you got us all invited us. Said she was your girlfriend and she had seen... She had witnessed, oh, God. Seeing all of this. When the lawyers came to me in Canada,

they said, Leonard, they said, Leonard, we've got bad news for you. And I said, yeah, what kind of bad news? And they said, your girlfriend testifying against you. And I looked at him, I said, my girlfriend. What do you mean? My girlfriend?

He said, your girlfriend. And I said, I don't have a girlfriend. I got a wife, two kids. So talk about James Reynolds, the former U.S. attorney in charge of the prosecution that helped convict you. He later becomes an advocate for your release stating the prosecution could not prove

that you had committed any offense and the conviction was unjust. He wrote to president after president. He himself was appointed by Carter right through to Biden. Yes. Well, about 10 years ago, James Reynolds started to have a change of heart, I guess. James Reynolds said that there is no evidence, Bernard Piltier committed any crimes on that reservation. and that's pretty, he was in charge of everything.

What this ultimately leads to is your imprisonment for 49 years. The majority of your life behind bars, what this institutionalization meant for you, what it meant to be both a prisoner and considered a political prisoner around the world and a symbol of the fight for Native American rights and what happens to you when you engage in it? All of those things. Well, I think I'm going to ask this question quite a bit and it's hard for me to answer,

but I think what really kept me strong was my anger. I was extremely angry about what they did to me and my people. And I'm still very, very angry. and there was no way in hell I was going to get justice. I could have had at least 14 constitutional issues that I should have been released on, at least that many. And I knew it wasn't going to get it. I knew it was the courts were not going to give it to me.

And I mean, even the Supreme Court that wouldn't refuse to hear my case and stuff like that. Well, I knew why, you know. I found evidence of them meeting with Judge Haney. And Judge Haney became a strong advocate for my release. But we found evidence. He worked with the FBI. And I just, I felt so much hate and anger.

And what they did to, native people in this country, this continent. And that kept me strong. It kept me from, I've been offered numerous times, but a few times anyway, that if I accepted responsibility and made statements that everything

we said, dang a table about the United States government, what their past history was, and their dealings with us as people in the nation, and they would turn me loose. And I refused to do that. I refuse to bow down to them, and I still refuse to bow down to them. I'm going to die with my beliefs.

And I just, refuse to to me it's treason against my nation, my people. You're a major symbol of indigenous power not only in the United States

but around the world. What does that mean to you? Well, I hope I can use it to benefit my people. I mean, as I said earlier, we're still in danger. It's not over for

We don't get to live like the rest of people in this country. And without fear of what happened to us if we had our treaties taken away from us. We don't get to live like that. We still have to live under that fear of losing our identity, losing our culture, our religion and stuff. Most Americans don't have to worry about that. We do. And so the fight for the struggle still goes on for me. I'm not going to give up.

I haven't surrendered. I don't want to go back to prison. And I heard that Trump was going to try to take away all the bides, pardons, and everything. Hardens and everything else like that. What would you say to young indigenous people? I'm looking behind you at a photograph of, is it a picture of your great-granddaughter?

Yeah, this one, right here. And she's wearing a T-shirt that says strong. How old is she? She's now 11, now 11. We adopted her when she was a little baby. Been taken care of hers ever since. and she loves me and thinks I'm the greatest thing of the world I love her because she is the greatest thing of the world

and she's a now champion fly swimmer she was going to her plan was if she wins the Olympics she was going to take those Olympics and say this is for my grandpa Leonard Peltier who they illegally put in prison this is for him I said, where do you come up with that? She just won't say that.

She just looks at me. You know, we've been covering the climate movement for so many years. We're here in North Dakota covering this standoff at Standing Rock, the Sioux-led, indigenous-led global movement to preserve the environment. And this year, the UN Climate Summit is in just the tip of the rainforest, Bilem, in Brazil. And each of these UN climate summits, we see indigenous people, especially young indigenous people there fighting for the planet. Do you see the voice of indigenous people on the climate movement as hopeful? We've been talking about this for 250 years or no, since America was first organized.

When we pray and whatever we do, we still talk about Mother Earth and other environment stuff. We even stopped. We never will stop. You know, we are still strong environmentalists. Well, Leonard Paltier, I want to say thank you so much for inviting us into your home. I'm so glad we're not coming to a prison. Oh, so why. Indigenous leader Leonard Peltier, speaking in September at his home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota on his 81st birthday weekend.

While we were there, I also had a chance to talk to one of Leonard Peltier's daughters who was just a toddler when Leonard Peltier was jailed in 1976. My name's Marquita Shales Paltier. I'm the daughter of Leonard Paltier. I'm 52 years old, and I'm standing outside my dad's house. After 49 years of imprisonment, my dad is finally free and I'm home with him. So you live in Lawrence. You have for decades. Lawrence is not that far from Leavenworth, where he was held for many, many years before moving on to Coleman in Florida. What are your earliest memories of your dad? My earliest memory of me and my dad was actually in Marion, Illinois, when he was there before it was Superbacks. I was there with my grandmother, Hazel, and my little brother, Waha. And I remember sitting beside my grandma waiting for my dad to come out those doors for the first time ever. And I remember asking my grandma, I said, do you think my dad's going to like me? And she's like, yeah, he's going to love you.

And I said, is it okay if I hug my dad? you know and she was like yeah of course go hug him and she kind of pushed me in that door towards the door and when it opened and he came out he just smiled and i ran to him and i just remember him hugging me and i was like that's my dad that's my dad you know because i hadn't i don't have any memories prior to that they said we live together in in oregon but i don't remember that they said we saw him in canada when he before they extradited him but i don't remember that. How old were you when you saw him and Marion? Um, I think I was around seven or eight years old. So what was it like through those years? I mean, it's the only thing you knew, but to

visit him only behind bars? Um, when I was young, it was really confusing. It was hard to understand why, um, you know, because he kind of protected me. Probably because I was so young and I didn't understand what was going on. But, um, it was bittersweet because I loved going to there and like for me that was normal you know to see my dad there even though there's dads around me with my other friends and stuff i just um for me that was normal and i but as i got older and started to understand what was going on why he was there i started to uh resent it you know because every time three o'clock came around i hated it because it knew i knew i was going to have to leave my dad and i wouldn't see him again especially that last

day of the visit we would usually spend about a week and in that last day of visits i would just like man i'm not going to see my dad again for six six seven months you know and then as i got older it was just like oh my god what if i don't get to see him again next time you know so eventually i packed up my kids and moved to kansas so i could be closer to him and then uh that worked out for about three years and then from there they moved him again across the country so you know we didn't get to have the relationship I thought we would during that time just because he was way over in Pennsylvania, then Florida, and I was stuck in Kansas. And what was your understanding from early on and did it change of why he was behind bars?

Yeah, I just, like I knew things had happened that were, you know, not, he was, I've always been told and taught that my dad was there because he wanted better for me as his daughter, as a native person. He wanted people to respect me, not only as his daughter, but just as a native person, you know, to understand that we are not property or we are not animals or savages that we are human beings just like everybody else. And as I got older and started understanding his case and what was the, you know, the details of it. And it went from, you know, resenting not, I never resented my dad, but I resented the government. And I resent, you know, but I, it went from not knowing the extent of it to knowing the full extent of it and just being proud of like

even though I prayed for him to get out all the time I I knew what he stood for and I was proud and I had to you know keep fighting for him because I knew that someday someday he would get out you know and he did he did which is unbelievable to me still when did you hear that Biden had commuted his sentence and sentenced him to home confinement I don't remember the date exactly, but it was sometime at the end of January. I was crazy because I was planning on leaving, I was going to leave the country and just disappear. After his parole was denied in June of 24, I think it was 24, I basically thought my dad was going to die there. So I had given up on everything, and I was getting ready to disappear into Canada and just disappeared.

um but i was sleeping on my mom's couch that morning uh and i heard the phone ring and then i heard my mom and she said what and i thought the worst of course that they called to tell me my dad was dead and uh then my cousin was crying and she said working i'm so happy she was like what are you talking about she's like your dad's getting out of prison and i was like you know i cussed in my mom's house, unless I'm joking with her, I just was like, you're lying. You're lying to me. You're lying to me. My dad's, she's like, they're Joe Biden and, you know, this, that, and the other. And I just, I couldn't, I didn't know what to do. I just, I froze. And I, I still can't remember if I called my nephew or if I called my brother, who I called, but I called somebody. And I asked them, I was like, is it true? My dad's getting out of prison and they're like, yeah. I'm so thankful to millions of people for, the last 49 years of my life that helped pray for him that helped write letters that helped make phone calls that sent signed petitions you know that's all those people and and and to help bring my dad home but the thing of it is is people don't understand that you know what

my dad want to prison so did we you know we were out here free but we weren't free we were out here struggling when he was in there struggling and I was blessed enough to have people like my grandmother and my mom to show me that, you know what, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Leonard Peltier means so much to so many people around the world. Talk about what he means, not just to you as his daughter, but to you as an indigenous woman. Oh, man, my dad, I told him this before he's my hero. He's the, what, the definition of what a boy or should be. you know, to be able to stand strong and still come out of that prison smiling, to be able to set an example and, like, I look up to my dad

because I don't know very many people that could go through the stuff he's been through and still have a smile on his face. And it makes me proud to call it my dad, you know, that's my dad. Marquita Shields Peltier, the daughter of Leonard Peltier, speaking in September at Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, where Leonard has been living since being released from prison in February. And that does it for today's show. To see all of Democracy Now's coverage of Leonard Peltier and our interview with him over the years behind bars, you can go to Democracy Now.org. Special thanks to Dennis Moynihan, Trina Nodora, Sam Alcoff, and Zazu, the Newshound.

Democracy Now is produced with Mike Burke, Renee Feltz, Dina Guzder, Messiah, Roads, Nermine Sheikh, Maria Teresana, Nicole Salazar, Sarah Nassar, Cherina Nod, Sam Alcoff, Tamarra, John Hamilton, Rabbi Karin, Honey Massoud, and Safwat Nizal. Our executive director is Julie Crosby, special thanks to Becca Staley, John Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike DeFilippo, Miguel Negera, Hugh Grant, Karl Marxer, David Pruid, Danis McCormick, Matt Ely, Anna Osbeck, Emily, and, Sandante Torreieri and Buffy St. Marie Hernandez. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.