After spending nearly 50 years behind bars, American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier is finally free.

Following a grant of executive clemency from former president Joe Biden, Peltier was released from federal prison on Tuesday morning. He is now on his way to North Dakota, to the homelands of his tribe, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

“Today I am finally free! They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit!” Peltier said upon his release from a U.S. government penitentiary in Florida, according to NDN Collective, a non-profit that advocated for his freedom.

“Thank you to all my supporters throughout the world who fought for my freedom. I am finally going home,” Peltier said.

“I look forward to seeing my friends, my family, and my community,” Peltier added. “It’s a good day today.”

“I am finally going home”: Leonard Peltier was released from federal prison in Florida on the morning of Tuesday, February 18, 2025.

“Today I am finally free! They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit!” Peltier said after spending nearly 50 years behind bars. pic.twitter.com/uhItD9T0NM

— indianz.com (@indianz) February 18, 2025

In Florida, Peltier was welcomed by representatives of NDN Collective. The group is helping him return to Turtle Mountain, where he will serve out the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.

“Leonard Peltier is free!” said NDN Collective Founder and CEO Nick Tilsen. “He never gave up fighting for his freedom so we never gave up fighting for him. Today our elder Leonard Peltier walks into the open arms of his people.”

“Peltier’s liberation is invaluable in and of itself — yet just as his wrongful incarceration represented the oppression of Indigenous Peoples everywhere, his release today is a symbol of our collective power and inherent freedom,” added Tilsen, who is from the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Once in North Dakota, Peltier will be seeing more friends and family. NDN Collective is hosting a celebration at the Sky Dancer Event Center on the Turtle Mountain Reservation on Wednesday to reintroduce him to the community.

“There was so much love and intention put into making sure Leonard’s welcome home was done in a good way to honor the hard work and prayers of everyone who dreamed of this day, and to surround Leonard with the love and gratitude he deserves so that he may find peace and healing from this point on,” said Janene Yazzie, NDN Collective’s Director of Policy and Advocacy.

Peltier has been serving two life terms in connection with the murders of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975. Activists, supported by members of Congress and religious, political and legal figures worldwide, have been seeking his release ever since, arguing that he was prosecuted and punished unfairly during a time of massive change and upheaval in Indian Country.

“When I take a step back, I think of the generations of people who have worked for nearly 50 years to get Leonard home,” National Congress of American Indians President Mark Macarro said during his State of Indian Nations address last week.

“Leonard’s story includes traumatic reminders of the barriers that Indian Country continues to face,” Macarro said in Washington, D.C.

The barriers include the ongoing impacts of the genocidal Indian boarding school era. Ahead of Biden’s historic apology for the U.S. government’s role in removing tribal children from their communities, Macarro said he lobbied for Peltier’s freedom as he traveled aboard Air Force One with the former president.

“Leonard Peltier is the boarding school survivor. They took him away,” Macarro told Native news reporters at a press conference following his speech last Monday. “I doubt that the president knows that.”

“So that’s what I opened up with,” Macarro said of his time with Biden as Air Force One flew from D.C. to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, where the apology was delivered on October 25, 2024.

Less than three months later, and in one of his final actions as president, Biden signed the order granting clemency to Peltier. A copy of the January 19, 2025, directive was filed in federal court on the same day, according to online records.

“Today is a testament to the many voices who fought tirelessly for Peltier’s freedom and justice,” Holly Cook Macarro, a citizen of the Red Lake Nation who heads up Government Affairs for NDN Collective, said on Tuesday after Peltier was released. Cook Macarro is married to NCAI’s president.

Executive Grant of Clemency to Leonard Peltier. Signed by JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., President of the United States of America, on January 19, 2025. #LeonardPeltier #JoeBiden pic.twitter.com/ZEszORhjhy

— indianz.com (@indianz) January 20, 2025

Biden’s order gave Peltier’s release from United States Penitentiary Coleman I in Sumterville, Florida, as February 18. When contacted by Indianz.Com at the time, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said it wouldn’t comment about the then-prisoner’s status.

“For safety, security, and privacy reasons, we cannot provide information about the conditions of confinement for any inmate,” a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said.

“Questions about supervised release may be directed to U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services,” the spokesperson said in reference to the probation office of the federal court system.

The celebration for Peltier on Wednesday will be streamed online by NDN Collective. Feeds can be found on social media at:

• facebook.com/ndncol,
• youtube.com/ndncollective and
• linkedin.com/company/ndncollective.

The event is scheduled to begin at 12pm CST, NDN Collective said.