Yellow Bird: Whiteclay, a heartbreaking town
Monday, November 24, 2008
Filed Under:
Opinion
"A filmmaker and some activists will be at UND Monday to tell the story of the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota people’s fight for justice.
The brutal murders of Ronald Hard Heart, 39, and Wilson “Wally” Black Elk Jr., 40, in June 1999 turned national attention on Whiteclay, Neb., and caused the tribe to set about finding justice for the murdered men.
Tribal officials also want liquor sales to be regulated, and that’s showing up in the tribe’s fight with the Whiteclay’s infamous off-sale beer stores.
The badly beaten bodies of Hard Heart and Black Elk were found eight miles from Pine Ridge in a culvert near the Nebraska border. The murders remain unsolved.
It was these murders that caused Mark Vasina to start making a documentary about the incident. He thought the film would take a year, but “The Battle for Whiteclay” took five years to complete."
Get the Story:
Dorreen Yellow Bird: America's most heartbreaking town
(The Grand Forks Herald 11/22)
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