Threatening street protests at 74-year-old President Donald Trump’s Fourth of July bash at Mount Rushmore, Oglala Sioux tribal council president Julian Bear Runner cautioned Trump to not attend the event. Following Black Lives Matter protests around the country in the wake of George Floyd’s May 25 chokehold death, Native American tribes have also been reminded of U.S. historical treatment of indigenous peoples. “Trump coming here is a safety concern not just for my people inside and outside the reservation, but for the people of the Great Plains. We have such limited resources in Black Hills, and we’re already seeing infections rising,” Mr. Bear Runner told U.K’s “The Guardian” newspaper. Whether or not Bear Runner has a problem with Mount Rushmore or the Black Hills, the days have long passed when his tribe held sovereignty over the area.
Comprising 2% of the U.S. population, Native Americans now want recognition for the historical mistreatment—including genocide—that was part of U.S. treatment of native Americans from Colonial days through the Wild West to current times. “It’s going to cause an uproar if he comes here. People are going to want to exercise their First Amendment right to protest and we do not want to see anyone get hurt or the lands be destroyed,” Bear Runner said. But like Black Lives Matter, racial or ethnic groups in America can’t have it both ways, claiming they’re an independent part of the country while, at the same time, claiming First Amendment Rights when it comes to their group. When Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters seized six square blocks in Seattle June 12, they weren’t practicing First Amendment rights. Protesters threatening violence against the local, state or federal authorities are criminals.
If Trump’s campaign or any other lawful U.S. group wished to stage an event at any site inside the United States they don’t need permission from African Americans, Native Americas or any other group. Bear Mountain can’t claim cite the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights when challenging U.S. sovereignty, engaging it acts against U.S. laws, including rioting, looting, vandalism, arson, anarchy, falls under the 1807 Insurrection Act, authorizing the president to use federal troops to preserve order. Seizing property, violating local, state and federal laws under whatever guise is outlawed under the Insurrection Act to preventing revolution, rebellion, sedition, insurrection or lawlessness. Threatening violence, as Mr. Bear Runner warns, places him under U.S. laws banning criminal conduct. Claiming Mt. Rushmore or the Black Hills as sovereign Indian land is no excuse.
Native American tribe signed peace treaties with the U.S. government, including the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties, require tribes and the U.S. government to resolve future disputes through U.S. local, state and federal courts. Redress for Indian tribes, like any other dispute, is through the U.S. Court System. “The lands on which that mountain is carved and the lands he’s about to visit belong to the Great Sioux Nation under a treaty signed in 1851 and the Fort Laramie Treaty and I have to tell him he doesn’t have permission from its original sovereign owners to enter the territory at this time,” Bear Runner said. Whether Bear Runner is serious or not, what’s left of the Sioux Nation is managed under the Bureau of Indian affairs. Mt. Rushmore, Deadwood, the so-called Black Hills are part of South Dakota, an accepted state into the United States Nov. 2, 1889, with all its rights and privileges.
Playing to the cameras, Mr. Bear Runner speaks only for himself, not for his tribal nation that has treaty commitments confining sovereign lands to federally designated reservations. Trump and his campaign has every right to stage a Fourth of July celebration at any legal venue inside the United States, not subject to censorship by Native tribes making political statements during an Election Year. If Mr. Bear Runner prefers former Vice President and Democrat nominee Joe Biden that’s his right as an American, not as a spokesman for his tribe. Whatever covenants were signed in 1851, 1868 or any other time, if Mr. Bear Runner thinks the U.S. government has breached its compacts, he’s entitled to redress through the courts, not threatening violence at a July Fourth celebration or campaign rally. Militant leaders can’t rewrite U.S. laws, whether they like them or not.
Militant groups like Black Lives Matter or those representing Native tribes must conform like everyone else to the rule of law, whether inside or outside their communities or reservations. New York’s Black Lives Matter Hawk Newsome said if he doesn’t get what he wants, then he’ll burn the system down. “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down the system and replace it. All Right? And I could be speaking . . . figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation,” Newsome told Fox New Martha McCallum June 26. While riots are sometimes tolerated, violent acts are not part of First Amendment protesting. “As a leader of the United States he has an obligation to . . .honor the treaties that are the supreme law of the land,” Bear Runner said, forgetting they he’s a citizen of the United States subject to the same laws.
