"Forced onto a reservation in the 1800s.

Flooded by the federal government out of homes, businesses and even burial grounds in the 1960s.

Harassed and persecuted. Stereotyped and caricatured. Plagued by unemployment, alcoholism and poverty.

Despite the injustices, the Lower Brule Lakota Indians have endured.

And they are opening their home, and their culture, to us.

To outsiders.

My family visited the Lower Brule Reservation this summer. The land features rolling grasslands, sacred buttes and stunning views of the Missouri River and its unusual Big Bend. The loop is noted in the Lewis and Clark journals as encompassing a "butifull inclined Plain in which there is great numbers of Buffalow, Elk and Goats in view."

Those goats surely were antelope, "skipping," as William Clark wrote, across the plain that Lower Brule would like to share with the world.

"We are welcoming everybody. Everybody is welcome if they come," tribal member and conservation officer Sheldon Fletcher says. "It's a beautiful place, and we're willing to share that.

"And our story.""

Get the Story:
Emily Ford column: The Forgotten Sioux (The Salisbury Post 9/13)