RESCHEDULED - Saturday July 24th- Indigenous, frontline, and environmental leaders and allies are joining in solidarity on stolen Piscataway land in so-called Washington, DC to uplift the ongoing fight to Stop Line 3. There will be a community screening of the award-winning documentary by Keri Pickett, “First Daughter and the Black Snake,” which is an intimate look at the life of Winona LaDuke and the challenges her Northern Minnesota Ojibwe Tribe face as the threat of the Line 3 pipeline escalates. If there is rain the event will be postponed.

As a part of the ongoing initiative to put pressure on Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Jaime Pinkham and the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), organizers plan to project the film onto the Army Corps headquarters building at 441 G Street NW. Right now, President Biden and the ACOE have the power to take swift action to reject the Line 3 pipeline by withdrawing the Clean Water Act Section 404 permit for the pipeline.

The film shows the journey of Winona LaDuke who believes Big Oil is the black snake predicted in Indigenous prophecy to bring the earth’s destruction. When proposed new oil pipelines threaten sacred wild rice lakes, Winona dreams of organizing a spiritual ride, riding her horse against the current of oil “because a horse can kill a snake.”

The event will open with remarks from the filmmaker Keri Pickett, Winona LaDuke, folx from Extinction Rebellion DC, Palm Collective, Arm in Arm for Climate Justice and Shutdown DC, and is part of a week of actions to defund Line 3 where water protectors around the country will denounce the two loan renewals for Enbridge on July 22nd and July 23rd.

In advance of this weekend’s events, Winona LaDuke released the following statement:

“It is time for the Biden administration and the Army Corps of Engineers to recognize the reality of the climate crisis. We cannot afford another risky fossil fuel pipeline tearing through our earth, water, and sacred wild rice beds. This is a matter of life and death for our people, and our planet.

For seven years we have tried to stop this pipeline project. There's no federal environmental impact statement on it. The Army Corps of Engineers should not have issued the permits to begin with, and they must act on this mistake by rejecting the permits until they can perform a full environmental review that considers the climate, water, and Tribal implications of this pipeline.

We are trying to stop the Line 3 pipeline because this is about our life and our wild rice and our water. We want the administration to stop the human rights violations and protect our future generations.

This pipeline made no sense seven years ago, it makes even less sense now. We are asking the President and Jaimie Pinkam to intervene on behalf of the First Nations and the Indigenous people whose human rights are being violated and stop the Line 3 pipeline.”

For more information about the event and how to join, visit StopLine3.org.

###