This webpage is a product of a community-based oral history project. It originated from a common desire to have a space where anyone who participated in the resistance movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock from 2016-2017 could have their agency to share their story. As an indigenous-led movement to protect the water of the Missouri River from the oil pipeline, thousands of “Water Protectors” from around the world came in peace and prayer to “Stand with Standing Rock” against the Energy Transfer Partners Company.

Included in this project are video and podcast interviews that were recorded as part of the Honoring that was held for all Water Protectors by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (CRST) at the request of the Wasagiya Najin (Grandmothers Group) of CRST at their annual Powwow (Wacipi) in Eagle Butte, South Dakota on September of 2017.

All of the videos are unedited and available for educational use only as designated by the Creative Commons license.

This project was developed as an expression of community engaged scholarship based on the long standing collaboration between Madonna Thunder Hawk and Professor Elizabeth A. Castle. Thunder Hawk and Castle worked together alongside a group of Denison University students that were later known as the “Water Protectors Media Team”.

At Denison University, an event was held to unveil the website and have a larger conversation about the situation at Standing Rock. Awareness and education of Standing Rock directly from Water Protectors is meant to impact students at Denison and those across the world so that support and resources can reach the fight for the right to water. You can find out more about the class that conducted and processed these interviews here.

Mni Wiconi