Connect with us

News

Indigenous Activists Disrupt Thanksgiving Parade in Occupied Lenapehoking aka Philadelphia, PA

Published

on

INDIGENOUS ACTIVISTS DISRUPT THANKSGIVING PARADE, DEMAND TRUTH OF HOLIDAY BE TOLD

Press Contact: IndigenousinPhilly@gmail.com

Image & Video Credit: Marquis Valdez

11/25/2021 – For Immediate Release – Lenapehoking (Philadelphia, PA) – As part of coordinated actions against colonialism led by matriarchs across Turtle Island, Indigenous women & femme activists disrupted the nation’s oldest “Thanksgiving” Day parade today, demanding the true story of Thanksgiving be told. Activists interrupted the parade & walked for several blocks wearing red fancy dance shawls with the messages “Land Back,” “MMIW,” & “No Thanks, No Giving” while chanting “No pride in genocide.” Though most spectators were quiet or supportive, a few heckled saying “Go home” and “Get out of Philly.” The Indigenous group included members of several tribes from across the so-called Americas, including local Algonquin & Lenape people, the rightful stewards of Lenapehoking, the Lenapes’ ancestral homeland that includes Philadelphia & NYC as well as other parts of settler-called Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, & New York.

The Thanksgiving myth perpetuated in schools across the nation celebrates unidentified “Indians” saving the early European settlers from certain death in the Eastern Coast woodlands. Holiday tables today are graced with foods indigenous to the Eastern Woodlands including turkey, squash, corn, & beans as well as other foods indigenous to the Americas including potatoes & rice. We are presented the story of a peaceful meal to honor friendship & prosperity between colonizers & those being violently colonized. And while there is certainly truth to the generosity of Native peoples, this romanticized version of a holiday feast is far from the colonial violence & genocide that the holiday truly commemorates. In 1637, Pequot elders, children, & families gathered in their villages for their annual Green Corn Dance ceremony, a harvest ceremony commemorated by dancing, feasts, fasting, & religious ceremonies. These sacred celebrations were often targets of colonial violence, as armed settlers used them to launch attacks against & murder entire family structures. The first Thanksgiving was exactly that, as English & Dutch colonizers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony surrounded a Pequot village & mercilessly murdered over 700 Pequot elders, men, women, children, & two-spirit people, setting their village on fire & shooting anyone who attempted to escape the blazes. The next day, the colony’s governor declared a day of thanksgiving to celebrate & thank God for their victory. This was the first Thanksgiving.

It has been 529 years since the invasion of the Tainos, 497 years since the first reported enslavement of a member of the Wampanoag Nation, 384 years since this Pequot massacre, & 158 years since Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. Yet to this day Indigenous people across Turtle Island are fighting for their sovereignty including the Lenape continuing to work for recognition within their own homelands; the Anishinaabe & others fighting Line 3; the Carrizo-Comecrudo, Tohono O’odham & others fighting the border wall; and Indigenous & Afro-Indigenous people from Central & South America, the Caribbean, Africa & more held in US detention centers & terrorized by US police & military. Today we demand the true colonial history of the United States be told, including Thanksgiving.

Quotes: “Thanksgiving is bittersweet. On the one hand it is the modern continuation of a very ancient time of fellowship & community. On the other hand, the whitewashed & Eurocentric version of Thanksgiving that we’re given with our pilgrim hats & our Indian headdresses is insulting not just to this longstanding cultural tradition, but to the memories & the spirits of the people who were murdered by colonizers who wanted their land & wanted their resources.” – Kate Thorn, Lenape/Seneca

“We are taking a stand because our genocide never stopped. They still poison our water, food, & air. They still steal our children & imprison our parents in jails & detention centers. They pump drugs into our homes & blame us for the epidemics. They stop us from moving freely in our lands. They erase us from the collective minds & consciousness, killing our memories when they cannot kill us. Colonizers are further erasing the history through renaming their holidays but not changing their participation in the settler-colonial project called the United States. The only true celebration of Native people will come when the US is abolished & we are free.” – Felicia Teter, Yakama

Continue Reading

Feature Front

No Thanks, No Giving! Indigenous Action Yearly Fundraiser (online)

Published

on

By

Support Indigenous radical autonomous, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial organizing & agitation!

COLONIZERS GOTTA PAY! SMASH THE NON-PROFIT CAPITALIST
INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!

Donate to Indigenous Action:

LINK: www.paypal.com/paypalme/indigenousaction

This is our yearly call for material support for Indigenous Action activities & donation drive for Táala Hooghan infoshop unsheltered support & operational expenses.

Indigenous Action (IA/originally Indigenous Action Media) was founded on August 25th, 2001 to provide strategic communications and direct action support for Indigenous sacred lands defense. We are a volunteer-run radical autonomous crew of anti-colonial & anti-capitalist Indigenous trouble makers & propagandists.

We generally are comprised of designers, artists, writers & frontline agitators that work together on a project by project basis (some long-term some short) for liberation for Mother Earth and all her beings. We’ve organized hundreds of actions, marches, banner drops, workshops, conferences, benefits, & much more. 100% of all proceeds directly support radical Indigenous organizing. Everything we do is based on community support. We don’t rely on grants. We’re all in for total liberation.

Some (not all) active projects & organizing we’re currently directly involved with:

  • IA Podcast+ Táala Hooghan Infoshop
  • KinłaniMutualAid.org
  • HaulNo.com
  • ProtectthePeaks.org
  • Ongoing local/regional frontline support:
  • Resource/supply distro, bail, jail support
    organizing, etc.
  • Graphic & web support for a dozen
    current Indigenous-led campaigns.

Some larger yearly expenses we need immediate support for:

  • Táala Hooghan taxes & utilities (the space has been free to use by KMA for 3 years):
    Approx. $6,000+/year.
  • Regional supply distro for Indigenous unsheltered relatives: $1,000-$3,000, we also maintain funds for emergency hotels.
  • Anti-state repression + DA support: $3,000+ varies, but we maintain an ongoing bail fund & frontline resource support.

www.indigenousaction.org

Continue Reading

anti-colonial

16th Annual No Thanks, No Giving!

Published

on

By

Indigenous Action presents:
16th Annual No Thanks, No Giving!
Food share, anti-colonial resistance & solidarity discussion circle, & online fundraiser!


DONATE: 



1:30p – 4pm
We will prepare and serve mutton stew and other foods for all who join us. Please bring any dish to contribute if you wish, we also plan on actively distributing (possibly mobile) any extra foods.

Local volunteers needed! Contact: indigenousaction@gmail.com

At 2:30p we will have a talking & action circle focused on anti-colonial resistance & solidarity. Representatives of Kinłani Mutual Aid, Haul No!, volunteers with Protect the Peaks, and autonomous organizers supporting unsheltered relatives will present & discuss upcoming actions & organizing. We will also discuss building Indigenous solidarity with local efforts to Free Palestine. Come ready to share, support and get involved! Everyone welcome!
This event is free, please bring donations for unsheltered relative support (tents, sleeping bags, tarps, jackets, etc).

This is also our yearly fundraiser for Táala Hooghan infoshop and Indigenous Action activities!
Please donate online via PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/indigenousaction
Support Indigenous autonomous organizing and agitation!

*We will not host a livestream this year.

When: Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023
1:30pm – 4:00pm MST.

Where: Táala Hooghan Infoshop1704 N 2nd St, Kinłani (Occupied Flagstaff), AZ

MASKS REQUIRED This event will be held both indoors and outdoors (dress warm!) with limited indoor space. We will maintain social distancing & mask protocols for immunocompromised relatives.

For 16 years we have hosted No Thanks, No Giving! as an anti-colonial event to bring together radical Indigenous voices, share traditional foods, and benefit unsheltered relatives at Táala Hooghan Infoshop in Kinlani (Flagstaff, AZ). More info: www.indigenousaction.org

#nothanksnogiving #MutualAid #indigenousmutualaid #solidaritynotcharity

Continue Reading

anti-colonial

New Book: No Spiritual Surrender, Klee Benally

New Book: No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred is a searing anti-colonial analysis rooted in frontline experience.

Published

on

By

No Spiritual Surrender, Klee Benally Book
New Book: No Spiritual Surrender, Klee Benally

NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE & SELECT BOOKSTORES: No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred

No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred is a searing anti-colonial analysis rooted in frontline experience. Klee Benally (Diné) unrelentingly agitates against colonial politics towards Indigenous autonomy and total liberation of Nahasdzáán (Mother Earth).

Available now from Detritus Books detritusbooks.com

406 pages | $20 Nonfiction | Paperback Available in select bookshops.

About the author: Klee Benally is a Diné (Navajo) anarchist and undisciplined agitational propagandist. Originally from Black Mesa. Klee currently resides in occupied Flagstaff, Arizona. kleebenally.com, indigenousaction.org

www.detritusbooks.com

Wholesale inquiries: detritusbooks.com
Now booking speaking tour dates: indigenousaction@gmail.com

Continue Reading

Popular Posts