Purpose of Unite to Fight!
The school is held to strengthen Lakota activists & activists who work with the Lakota people; to provide new training to young emerging leaders in the Tiyospaye, Community, Band, and Nation; to accommodate the recurrent need to inspire & deepen solidarity among the freedom fighters of our time; & to do what we can to insure that the younger generations can carry the struggle for our human rights and treaty rights by providing to them the collective knowledge, experience,& insight of more experienced activists, leaders, & organizers. This collective consciousness & experience combined with new training & ideas can be the weapons our younger generations may have to access in the work they choose to do in fighting for human rights and treaty rights; and for the survival of and overcoming the oppression and colonization of indigenous peoples.
The Lakota People’s School of Liberation is held in the He Sapa (Sacred Black Hills) so we can absorb the awesome power of this sacred place. We began the school on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so we may remember the struggle he led for people of color & the successes of that struggle: may we be inspired by that fight waged in this country. However, the struggle of indigenous people is not over.
We face a mighty enemy. Indeed, warriors working to create social change have many enemies; the faces of genocide are many.
We will use this time to renew & invigorate the traditional alliance in the generations of the Oceti Sakowin, to sustain existing alliances with other people, to make new alliances, and to strengthen our ability to create new and numerous allies.
Tunkasila, unsimalaye, omakiyaye. Lila wopila icicaye. Mitakuye Oyasin.
