'The spirits are talking': Leaders speak of hope and healing in reservation border town

Wednesday, October 30, 2019  

RED SHIRT, South Dakota – The wind speaks in this place.

Sometimes it’s loud and abrasive and seeks to humble those who have failed to listen to the truths it has breathed upon them.

Other times, it’s warm and soothing and offers comfort and reward to those who have heard and heeded its edicts.

So it was one recent evening, when 19 people – friends and advocates of justice – gathered on a bluff overlooking the carved rock of the Badlands.

They came here before, to gather power and to share the inspiration and courage they knew they would need to fight those who had benefited for generations from the misery they had created in a place called Whiteclay.

As they walked down to this bluff on this night, the sun broke through the clouds and the wind died to barely a whisper at the end of a cold and blustery day. They formed a circle and began sharing stories.

“We just wanted to come out this afternoon and come to a place that’s a little quieter, where we can reflect not just on the things that have been accomplished but the things that have yet to be accomplished, and also just to spend a few minutes to think about those who are still among us and those who are not among us anymore,” said John Maisch, a former Oklahoma liquor prosecutor and documentary filmmaker.

“I thought it would be appropriate to spend some time and reflect on the work of our friend Frank LaMere and the work of our friend Alan Jacobsen,” Maisch said.

LaMere, the Winnebago activist who fought beer sales in Whiteclay, Nebraska, for nearly two decades, died June 16 after a brief battle with cancer. Jacobsen, a Nebraska businessman and former Republican politician, died May 4 after suffering an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Both men had fought tirelessly for years the massive flow of beer from Whiteclay onto the dry Pine Ridge Reservation, just across the border in South Dakota. They had spoken before government organizations like the Sheridan County Board of Supervisors and the Nebraska Legislature, advocating for an end to beer sales in Whiteclay.

In that dusty border town, four beer stores once sold nearly 4 million cans of beer a year, mostly to residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation, where alcohol is outlawed.

For years, LaMere, Jacobsen, Maisch and a handful of supporters argued for closure of those beer stores. For years, little changed in Whiteclay, where once beer drinkers could be seen sleeping under awnings and on sidewalks.

Then in April 2017, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission decided to revoke the town’s four liquor licenses. A September 2017 ruling by the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the commission’s decision.

On the first day after the stores were close, Matthew Walz joined Frank LaMere on a visit to Whiteclay. Walz said he expected to see drinkers in the streets, sick from alcohol withdrawal.

Instead, the two men saw just one other man, and he too was there as a tourist.

“We both realized this is the first day in so many decades where there’s not been anybody beat up, or assaulted or gang raped or murdered in Whiteclay,” Walz said. “None of these things will happen today in Whiteclay. What a moment that was.”

The fourth Whiteclay Leadership Summit drew nearly 40 people to the Our Lady of the Sioux Church in Oglala, South Dakota, about 15 miles west of Pine Ridge. The event was held October 18-20 and included presentations about the history of efforts to shut down the beer stores, the impact of alcohol use on unborn children and a trauma center for people suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder that has been proposed to be built in Whiteclay.

Maisch said Jacobsen had begun the effort to find land for the trauma center before his death, initially identifying a 1.5-acre property in Whiteclay that was owned by one or more former beer store owners.

“The decision was made at that time not to pursue that property,” he said.

Those who are seeking to build the trauma center decided it didn’t seem right to financially benefit the same people who once reaped the windfall generated by rampant alcohol sales to a vulnerable people.

Eventually, Jacobsen found another property – a 5.5-acre lot once owned by a Christian ministry that served the homeless in Whiteclay called Lakota Hope Ministry. A Minnesota nonprofit director purchased the land, and decided to sell it to Maisch this summer.

The land includes a cabin, offices, Quonset huts and an arbor.

In it, Maisch and others see an opportunity to change the town’s story.

“We could turn Whiteclay away from a place of death and destruction to a place of hope and healing,” Maisch said.

He said he envisions a trauma center that would serve people who suffer from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, a family of diseases caused by exposure of a fetus to alcohol. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the most severe of those conditions.

Nationally, one out of every 100 children are born with FASD, but in Pine Ridge nearly one out of every four children is born with the condition, according to the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Maisch sees Whiteclay as a fitting home for a trauma center serving the victims of alcohol use during pregnancy.

After all, he said, it was the stories of children suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder that finally convinced liquor regulators in Nebraska to close down the beer stores. One such story in particular, Maisch said, impacted alcohol regulators.

Before Nebraska liquor regulators learned about Arianna Boesem, activists like LaMere and Maisch struggled to convince them that beer sales in Whiteclay was more than an issue of personal responsibility.

Ariana’s mother breached while drinking on the streets of Whiteclay. The baby spent most of the first year of her life in hospitals, struggling with the effects of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and the health care costs she incurred during the first five years of her life totaled $3.3 million.

Her story, Maisch said, shifted the entire narrative of the Whiteclay discussion from one of personal responsibility to the impacts of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder on innocent children like Arianna and on the public health care system.

He said the FASD trauma center would provide assessment to potential clients and to provide treatment and family services, as well as providing educational outreach to the Pine Ridge Reservation.

“What better legacy to leave for the people that we honor and the work that was done than to create a place where there can be hope and healing, and quite frankly, what better place than Whiteclay to do it?” Maisch said.

He said the Nebraska communities that are nearest to Whiteclay and sell alcohol haven’t seen the kind of lawlessness that some predicted following the beer stores closing. People aren’t sleeping, defecating or urinating in the streets. They’re not killing one another, Maisch said.

“We never thought that closing Whiteclay would end alcohol consumption here in Pine Ridge, but what we didn’t think it would do is hopefully move it to locations where law enforcement was present,” he said. “And we’re seeing that in Rushville. We’re seeing that in Gordon.”

Maisch offered a recent update he received from the Nebraska State Patrol on conditions in Whiteclay and nearby Nebraska communities. He said the State Patrol told him that it had not found any suspects in ongoing murder investigations in Whiteclay, including that of Sherry Wounded Foot, who was found severely beaten in the town on August 5, 2016. The 50-year-old mother of three died 12 days later.

Maisch said the State Patrol said it has issued no bootlegging charges in any Nebraska town near Whiteclay, despite concerns among activists that bootleggers have begun buying massive quantities of alcohol from towns near Whiteclay.

The State Patrol has issued six citations for sales of alcohol to minors and one citation for sale of alcohol to an intoxicated person, which Maisch said was likely seven more citations than the law enforcement agency had issued in the previous six years in Whiteclay prior to the closure of the town’s beer stores.

“The owners of those stores in Sheridan County know that we are watching and we’re engaged,” he said.

He said it will be important for those who worked to shut down the beer stores to remain vigilante and ensure no future beer stores open in the town. The Nebraska Liquor Control Commission and Nebraska Supreme Court decisions were procedural and someone could file an application for a liquor license any time, Maisch said.

“Do I think that’s likely?” he said. “I don’t. I think that it’s still too fresh. I don’t want to be back up here fighting to close those stores again.”

At the Our Lady of the Sioux Church, several summit attendees shared stories about Frank LaMere and Alan Jacobsen.

Bryan Brewer, the former president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, shared a story about visiting Whiteclay shortly before the beer stores were closed. He said he and LaMere were limping that day, Brewer from knee surgery and LaMere from a stroke he had suffered several years earlier.

As they walked through the town to its southern border facing greater Nebraska, LaMere turned to his friend and said, “Bryan, let’s walk to Lincoln.”

“I thought he was kidding,” Brewer said.

He told LaMere, “I don’t think we could walk to Rushville.”

“My biggest regret is that I didn’t take up on it,” Brewer said. “I should’ve said, ‘Let’s do it Frank,’ because somehow we would have done it.”

LaMere’s daughter, Jennifer, who attended the summit, expressed a different kind of remorse.

“I’m really ashamed to say that I have never been to Whiteclay until a month or so ago,” she said. “I’ve heard about Whiteclay for 20 years. I’ve seen pictures and I’ve heard all of your names. It’s really nice to put a face to all of your names.”

Later, at a celebration of life held at the former Lakota Hope Ministry in Whiteclay, Maisch and others offered stories and thoughts about their recently departed friends and about the future of Whiteclay.

Maisch described a meeting he had with one of the men who he featured in his documentary, “Sober Indian/Dangerous Indian,” which chronicled of four Lakota men living on the streets of Whiteclay during the summer of 2013.

He said he was talking to Reggie Hollow Horn and filming him on the streets of Whiteclay one day when Hollow Horn suddenly stopped talking and became fixated on something just down the road.

Maisch asked him why he had stopped talking.

Hollow Horn pointed in the distance and said, “They’re talking to me.”

Maisch asked him who was talking to him.

Hollow Horn motioned north toward Wounded Knee, a village where in 1890 soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry slaughtered more than 300 men, women and children, and said, “The spirits are talking.”

What are they saying, Maisch asked.

“They want to know what your intentions are here,” Hollow Horn said.

Maisch paused from his story.

“Looking back now, the intention was to raise awareness about Whiteclay but ultimately to shut it down,” he said.

“I hope that the spirits are satisfied.”

Indian Country and allies say goodbye to 'hero' Frank LaMere (June 17, 2019)
Winnebago activist Frank LaMere passes on (June 17, 2019)
Native activist receives honorary degree for work in border town (May 13, 2019)
Healing center aims to offer hope in reservation border town (April 30, 2019)
Lawsuit blames Indian Health Service and 'rent-a-doc' for Lakota woman's death (March 14, 2019)
March held in honor of Native children lost in foster care (November 22, 2018)
Native Sun News Today: Seeking justice for victims at Whiteclay (November 8, 2018)
Activists mark year since official halt to liquor sales in Whiteclay (October 8, 2018)
Frank LaMere: Native people are still fighting for our own rights (February 12, 2018)
Activists seek action on unsolved deaths in Pine Ridge Reservation border town (February 7, 2018)
Lakota man dreams of building tipis in Whiteclay to rebuild border town economy (November 7, 2017)
Native Sun News Today: Tribal leaders absent at border town liquor summit (October 13, 2017)
Native Sun News Today: Liquor stores in reservation border town remain closed (October 4, 2017)
Native Sun News Today: The fight for Whiteclay moves into the court system (September 8, 2017)
Liquor stores in Pine Ridge Reservation border town ask court for ruling to reopen (August 29, 2017)
Whiteclay liquor store owners head to highest court in Nebraska (May 10, 2017)
Native Sun News Today: Whiteclay liquor sales come to an abrupt halt (May 9, 2017)
Whiteclay goes quiet as liquor stores near reservation shut down (May 1, 2017)
Whiteclay liquor stores must close temporarily amid court battle (April 28, 2017)