Leonard Peltier: In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

Published in Issue 440 of The Black Commentator on September 8, 2011
Republished in the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee blog on September 8, 2011
Excerpted at 18:34 in the YouTube video entitled LEONARD Peltier 40 years after on September 21, 2013

By Larry Pinkney

“A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.”
– Chief Crazy Horse

Today’s very succinct column is meant as a reminder to everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of a vision to which many of our Indigenous Native sisters and brothers have often made reference. It is also a vision embodied by the ongoing unjust incarceration of Indigenous Native rights activist and long time political prisoner Leonard Peltier.

This week Mr. Peltier became the recipient of the first Mario Benedetti international human rights prize. The aforementioned Mario Benedetti Foundation was established “to support human rights and cultural causes in synch with the work of the Uruguayan writer who died in 2009.”

It is important for everyday people of all colors in this nation and throughout the world to take a moment to consider and salute our brother Leonard Peltier, and indeed all political prisoners wherever they are. Mr. Peltier is one of the longest serving political prisoners in this nation, and he has remained steadfast in his principles despite enormous and continuous adversity.

Like the great 1870s Indigenous Native warrior, philosopher, and chief – Crazy Horse,  Mr. Peltier has demonstrated a vision which all people of goodwill must yet rekindle.

From Leonard Peltier to Mumia Abu-Jamal to Lynne Stewart and so very, very many others who have been and remain incarcerated in a sadistic and unjust U.S. prison gulag system; we must be clear that their imprisonment is our own imprisonment and their suffering is ours as well. Likewise their yearning for justice and spirit of resistance must also be ours even as we honor and struggle to save our Mother Earth. All political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be freed!

In the spirit of Crazy Horse, we congratulate you brother Leonard on the attainment of the Mario Benedetti international human rights prize! All Power To The People!

Onward then my sisters and brothers! Onward!