In August of 2012 I bought a copy of National Geographic at the airport in Portland, Maine. On the cover was a picture of a Sioux boy riding a white and brown horse bareback down a grass filled ridge. The title read: “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse – REBIRTH OF A SIOUX NATION”. On the plane I finished the article before takeoff and immediately said to my wife, Alison, “I’m going to go there. I want to see what life is like for the people who live there.” Sixty days later, I made my first visit. In just a few weeks I will be returning for the 30th time.
I can’t fully describe the depth of impact that the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota has had on the last fourteen years of my life other than to say it’s been transformative. Home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge is the biggest, most historic, remote, poorest, and traditionally disenfranchised of all the Sioux reservations on the northern plains. Those who live there are the direct descendants of some of the most famous war chiefs and medicine men in America history – names like Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Black Elk and more. I’ve had friends there describe their community’s modern journey through American history as “from first to worst”. The Oglala Sioux once roamed the plains as they pleased, strong and self-sufficient, following the seasons and the buffalo. Today, statistically, it’s the poorest place in America. Despite extreme social and economic challenges, the people there are friendly, brave, smart, kind, and determined. The culture they preserve holds a wisdom and values set that the larger world needs more of. It’s an edgy, complex, yet endearing, place filled with beauty and tragedy.
In my early years of travel there I took pictures, lots of pictures. I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Over a decade ago I made some of them into a 6-minute video designed to capture, as best I could, what I was seeing, feeling, and experiencing. I recently realized that I had never shared that video broadly with the world and so today I am doing so. Please enjoy this short, homemade movie. I do think a collection of images set to music can be worth more than a thousand words. I would love to hear what you feel and experience when you finish watching.
Wopila Tanka (Big Thanks) and blessings to you!
—Kevin
