Indigenous Oral Histories in Dallas Inspired by #NoDAPL and Water Is Life Coalition Building

Since 2016, Yolanda BlueHorse (Rosebud Sioux/Lakota) of the Society of Native Nations has led various demonstrations in the Dallas area to “Stand with Standing Rock,” including one of the first rallies in front of the Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) headquarters. BlueHorse has been a driving force behind major coalition building in the Dallas area against the Dakota Access Pipeline and other related ETP projects such as the Trans-Pecos Pipeline. She is one of many Native voices that have risen in the Dallas region and beyond since the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe launched the #NoDAPL movement to protect the Missouri River—their key water source and revered lands. J. Eric Reed (Choctaw), a Dallas-based attorney, and local radio host Albert Old Crow (Southern Cheyenne) have also vocalized Indigenous perspectives and experiences in northern Texas. They now join their voices with diverse Native Americans from throughout the state but especially in the oil metropole of Dallas—a space that has been claimed as the home of ETP CEO Kelcy Warren after Indigenous erasure and silencing— to support the #NoDAPL movement and “Mni Wiconi.” This presentation features the Indigenous resurgence and renewal of intertribal community in Dallas since #NoDAPL by contextualizing the historical presence and experiences of Native Americans in the city like BlueHorse, Reed, and Old Crow through their oral histories, since the relocation and urbanization programs in the 1950s.

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