https://www.justiceforbigfloyd.com/
“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” - #friedrichnietzsche
“Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery.” -Buckminster Fuller
Ink on Paper
8.5" X 11"
“The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.” -James Baldwin
“Peering at life through a window can ultimately abstract us from our actions and limit any meaningful confrontation with their consequences.” -Edward Snowden
Most long-range forecasts of what is technically feasible in future time periods dramatically underestimate the power of future developments because they are based on what I call the “intuitive linear” view of history rather than the “historical exponential” view.
-Ray Kurzweil
“You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you.”
-Vandana Shiva
“True, how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?” -Plato
“It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.” -Plato
Donny Trump portrait.
Colored pencil, highlighter, ink
8.5'“ x 11”
“Somewhere between the sacred silence and sleep.
Disorder, disorder, disorder.
When I became the sun I shone light into the man’s hearts”
System of a Down - Toxicity
This past Summer i had the chance to visit the infamous Homestead detention center in Homestead Florida.
The privately owned facility was the only for-profit detention center for minors in the United States. Caliburn International, the corporation involved was making about $800 per child every day of operations and was set to go public in the stock market.
Trump cabinet members like ex chief of staff General John Kelly, was a lobbyist and sat as a board member of Caliburn. Kelly was also in charge of the US’s military involvement in Honduras where many of the migrants and asylum seekers originate. These children and teens were commodified in a bizarre capitalistic form of state-sponsored human trafficking.
Luckily there were organized protestors at the entrance of the facility, some showing up literally every single day to give their support to the children as they shouted standing on ladders across a fence, “estamos con ustedes!” and “no estan solos!”. “We are with you” and “you are not alone”.
The facility closed in August 2019 but the policies of child separation remain as does the grip of the military industrial complex on issues of migration and asylum.
In 2018, Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. The gruesome murder of the Saudi journalist horrified most of the world but the US’s deep ties with the Saudis prevented them from taking any actions against the purported mastermind of the assassination: Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M88bU7hVQA Requiem for the American Dream FULL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNIHZZ6qlgI&t=1462s DN Interview (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrBQEAM3rE Manufactoring Consent (1992)
“If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTccJ1ndh0M A People’s history of the United States Trailer
Founder of the Trilateral Comission (with David Rockerfeller)
Adviser to Presidents Carter, Bush Sr, Ronald reagan and Obama.
Associate of Henry kissinger.
Helped to create, arm and train the Afghan Jihad movement (Mujahideen) during the 1980’s.
Author of “The Grand Chessboard” -
“…The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world’s paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power.” (“The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives,”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/25/the-broken-chessboard-brzezinski-gives-up-on-empire/ GOOD READ
“The good lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally, we have to operate on places where, all considered, one would not normally choose to go. But we go where the business is.”
-Richard “Dick” Cheney, Vice President under George W. Bush 2001-2009
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush 2001-2006
Smedley Butler was the most highly decorated Marine of all time. He wrote the prolific anti war book: War is a Racket.
After retiring, Butler exposed to the public a fascist coup attempt in which he was being prompted to rile up veterans and create a mob movement to overthrow the American president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one
international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the
losses in lives.”
“There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters. One is defense of our homes. The other is the defense of our Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit. Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket, pure and simple.”
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf FULL TEXT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc6kw6N1_kw The Business Plot to overthrow FDR
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
―Martin Luther King Jr.
Malcom X (1925-1965) was an African-American Muslim leader and a human rights activist. His father was murdered by the klu kulx klan. He was a small time crook and was sent to prison from 1946-52. In 1948 he wrote to Elijah Muhammad and joined the Nation of Islam. While at the Nation he was critical of the civil rights movement and of integration with whites. He advocated pan Africanism and segregation. In 1964 he left the nation and changed his mind on working with other civil rights leaders and movements. He was murdered on stage in Manhattan's Audobon ballroom in 1965. Multiple Nation of Islam members were caught and sentenced to life in prison. Some have claimed the murder a conspiracy involving the CIA and the FBI (John Ali, national secretary of the Nation of Islam, was identified as an FBI undercover agent.)
"When we see that our problem is so complicated and so all-encompassing in its intent and consent, then we realize that it is no longer a negro problem, confined only to the American negro; that it is no longer an American problem, confined only to America, but it is a problem for humanity."
"great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... Totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by most eloquent denunciations."
Henry Flagler (1830-1913) was an American industrialist and co-founder (with John D. Rockerfeller) of Standard Oil. He was a capitalist and is considered the father of Miami. Flagler spent the first half of his life making his fortune and the second half spending it. He agreed to build a rail road to South Florida and to create the roads and grids of the city on the condition that Julia Tuttle and the Brickells gave him half of their land.
Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States. Serving two consecutive terms from 1913 to 1921. He was president during World War One. He is responsible for having passed various controversial acts like the Federal Reserve act, (creation of Federal Reserve system) the Espionage Act of 1917, (which still stands to this day and is used against whistleblowers like Snowden.) The Sedition Act of 1918, and the spread of Wilsonian foreign policy, which is a racist form of interventionist imperialism in the name of democracy and capitalism. He was a Noble Peace Prize recipient for the formation of the League of Nations in 1919 and also a supporter of the Klu Klux Klan's principles, screening the first movie ever at the White House, The Birth of a Nation, which spurred the second wave of the KKK in America.
John D. Rockerfeller Sr. (1839-1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He was co-founder of the Standard Oil Company (with Henry Flagler) which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust (monopoly). His father was a con man and taught him about business at an early age by lending him money at interest and cheating him financially every chance he had. While at Standard Oil, Rockefeller engaged in unethical practices, such as predatory pricing and colluding with railroads to eliminate competition. Standard Oil controlled 90% of all refinery operations in the US. He believed he was doing god's work in creating his monopoly. In 1911 the Supreme Court ruled Standard Oil would have to be broken up. It's remains became Mobil, Exxon, and Chevron, all of which he had shares in making him even wealthier.
J.P. Morgan (1837-1913) was an American financier, tycoon, and financial manipulator who spurred monopolization in the early 20th century. He helped finance General Electric, Carnegie’s US Steel, and quickly became the most powerful private citizen in America after acquiring one-third of American railways.
Morgan was investigated in the “Pujo Committee” (1912-1913) for being part of a secret cabal of bankers and industrialists trying to control the country and it’s future. In response, the Federal Reserve system was established.
Morgan’s power continues to shadow American’s lives in the present day through modern banking. Chase Bank was bought by JP Morgan in 2000 for 30.9 BILLION dollars. The merger created the largest bank in America to this day.
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States (1901-1909) He was sworn in after the assassination of President William McKinley. He is credited for progressive social reform during his presidency as well as for being a trust buster, successfully suing Jp Morgan's Northern Securities Company, preventing the monopolization of the western railways. He was a war hawk but also one of four presidents who've been awarded the Nobel peace prize. He participated in the Spanish-American war's battle of San Juan in Cuba as a lieutenant colonel of the Rough Riders Regiment. He believed it was Americans' responsibility to civilize the rest of the world. This (racist) belief backed his imperialist doctrine abroad. In Colombia he was responsible for the backing of a local revolution that created the country of Panama in exchange for entrance to the canal. Intimidation through military might became America's big stick diplomacy.
"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
Prescott Bush was a US senator and banker. He is George W. Bush’s grandfather, and George H.W. Bush’s father. The three are members of the Skull and Bones secret society of Yale university.
Bush worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler’s and the Nazi’s rise to power. Documents have revealed that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930’s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. Evidence shows bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen’s US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war. (Source; The Guardian)
Prescott Bush's 1933 fascist plot VIDEO
How Bush's Grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power GUARDIAN ARTICLE 2004
Edward Louis Bernays was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".
Century of the Self BBC DOCUMENTARY - MUST WATCH
Academy of Ideas - Edward Bernays and Group Psychology: Manipulating the Masses VIDEO
#McCarthyism, is the name given to the period of time in American history that saw Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy produce a series of investigations and hearings during the 1950s in an effort to expose supposed communist infiltration of various areas of the U.S. government. The term has since become a byname for defamation of character or reputation by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations, especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges. (Britannica.com)
Harry Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, (1945-1953) ascending to the position after the death of FDR on 1945. His controversial decision to drop two atom bombs on civilians, intending to force Japan's surrender and sparing American lives in an invasion, remains polemic and the necessity of the act remains highly debated. The first bomb nicknamed 'Little Boy' was dropped in Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, killing 90,000 to 166,000 people. The other bomb, nicknamed 'Fat Man' was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th and killed 60-80 thousand people. Many say the bombs were an act of imperial and military might to show the USSR that the USA was the dominant global power while others say it was the only and best way out of the war.
"The atom bomb was no 'great decision.' It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness."
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Farewell address 1961
Allen Dulles was the third CIA director (53-61). He oversaw covert operations during Eisenhower's and JFK's presidencies including MK-Ultra, operation mockingbird, the bay of pigs, 1953 coup in Iran and 1954 coup in Guatemala. He was appointed by LBJ as one of seven commissioners of the Warren Commission which investigated the assassination of JFK.
Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States (1969-74) He began his political career in congress with the financial backing of Prescott Bush. (He repaid the favor by appointing George H.W. Bush as his ambassador to the UN and chairman of the Republican party). He was Vice president to the Eisenhower presidency (1953-61) He lost the 1960 presidential election to JFK. In public, he ended the Vietnam war and improved relations with the USSR and China. But secretly, with his National security advisor, Henry Kissinger, he bombed Cambodia (Operation Menu) indiscriminately murdering 50 to 150 thousand people. He is notoriously remembered for the Watergate scandal in which CIA operatives now known as the "plumbers" broke into the hotel to bug phone lines in the democratic national convention. Their main objective has been disputed. Some say they went in to disrupt the leaks of classified documents like the Pentagon papers while others say they were destroying evidence that linked Nixon to Cuba and the JFK assassination. Two of the plumbers, Frank Sturgis, and E. Howard Hunt were also in the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion. Nixon resigned the presidency after being forced to hand over all of his secret White House tapes. (Nixon was paranoid and secretly recorded everyone) President Gerald Ford granted a full pardon to Nixon.
Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State under President Nixon and Gerald Ford. He is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient while also being responsible for illegal secret bombings on Cambodia, Indochina, and Vietnam. These war crimes were committed under the pretense of fighting communism. he was also responsible for the CIA-sponsored murder and coup of socialist president Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973. Later replacing him by supporting the military dictator Augusto Pinochet.
“ The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KF9xycQITo
“Radical” simply means ‘grasping things at the root.’
J Edgar Hoover was the first FBI director. He was a ruthless anti communist who waged a covert and illegal war against dissident, black liberation, socialist, and communist groups. Hoover’s FBI notoriously created COINTELPRO or Counter Intelligence Program which spied and tried to destroy individual and group revolutionaries including the black panthers, Malcom X, Noam Chomsky, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States. (1981-89). Reagan was the spokesman for General Electric and worked as an FBI informant, providing names of actors thought to be communist sympathizers. He introduced "Reaganomics" or trickle down economics, smaller government and deregulation of markets, which lead to less oversight. He froze minimum wage and cut public housing by reducing federal assistance to local governments by 60%. This led to a widening gap in income inequality. He introduced the "war on drugs" which persecuted mostly against blacks and minorities and led to our present day global historic record of incarceration. He denied knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair that involved secret arms sales to Iran, the arming of the Nicaraguan Contras, and the shipping of cocaine into the US. (Which led to the crack epidemic) He increased defense spending by 35%, leaving the US with its largest financial deficit to date. Abroad, Reagan approved the financing, arming, and training of the mujahideen to fight the soviets, the bombing against Libya (Gaddafi), the invasion and assassination of progressive leader, Maurice Bishop of Grenada, and opposed anti-apartheid laws in South Africa.
"Governments tend to not fix problems, only to rearrange them"
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-reagan-promoted-genocide/5323774
George H.W. Bush was the 41st president of the United States. (1989-1993), Vice President to Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)(headed the war on drugs), CIA director (1976-1977), US ambassador to China (1973-1974). During his presidency he invaded Panama and removed Manuel Noriega (ex-CIA and DEA asset) from power, invaded Iraq in 1990 (Gulf War) with the intention of removing Saddam Hussein (ex-CIA asset), and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He was initiated into the Skull and Bones secret society in Yale university like his father and son. FBI documents have revealed a link of him as a key government player surrounding the events in the JFK assassination. He overlooked the #Iran-contra fiasco while VP under Reagan. (Arming terrorists and flying drugs back into the US)
Freeway Ricky Ross was a drug kingpin from Los Angeles. He was involved in the development of the crack epidemic in inner cities and ghettoes, selling $2 to $3 million of crack a day. He was eventually caught purchasing over one hundred kilograms of cocaine from a federal agent in a sting operation and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996. Later that year, a series of articles by journalist Gary Webb in the San Jose mercury news revealed a connection between one of Ross's cocaine sources, Danilo Blandon, and the CIA as part of the Iran-contra scandal. In which the United States was illegally selling arms to Iran and funneling money in to the Nicaraguan Contras' fight against the communist Sandinistas. Ross's case was brought to a federal court of appeals which reduced his sentence to 20 years as a result of Ross being over-sentenced. He was released from custody on September 29, 2009.
Ross has sued the rapper Rick Ross (William Leonard Roberts) for stealing his name and identity (Roberts was actually a correctional facility officer and never sold drugs before) but Ross lost under first amendment technicalities. Ross has stated the rapper is skewing and sensationalizing his story for commercial purposes meanwhile showing future generations the wrong message about drug dealing. #therealrickrossisnotarapper
Salvador Allende was the first Marxist democratically elected president. His administration was quickly a victim of economic strangulation through a US embargo and the CIA funding of the political opposition.
The overthrow of Chile on September 11, 1973 was one of many US-backed coups of sovereign latin american nations at the time.
Codenamed OPERATION CONDOR, the continent-wide operation was performed with the Chilean military and future dictator of Chile: General Augusto Pinochet.
Once Allende’s close man, Pinochet would overthrow the democratically elected Marxist president’s government with the Chilean military and CIA/US help.
Pinochet would go on to reign Chile with terror for the next 20 years.
Under his regime up to 2,300 civilians disappeared or were killed, 27,000 were tortured, and 80,000 were incarcerated. Among the jailed were students, artists, and intellectuals.
John Kerry was the United States Secretary of State under Barack Obama. He has served in the senate and was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was recruited and initiated into the skull and bones secret society of Yale university in 1966. Meet the press 2004 interview: Q- "You both were members of skull and bones, a secret society, in Yale. What does that tell us?" Kerry - "uh, not much because its a secret.." (laughs) Q - is there a secret handshake, is there a secret code?" Kerry - "I wish there was something secret I could manifest.." Q - "322? A secret number?" Kerry - "there are all kinds of secrets, but one thing is not a secret, I disagree with this presidents direction that he's taking the country, we can do a better job.." (Referring to fellow bonesman George W. Bush, initiated in 1968)
https://www.revealnews.org/article/did-defense-secretary-nominee-james-mattis-commit-war-crimes-in-iraq/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U81rp5ZtCdI
(Democracynow.org) Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel is testifying in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee for her confirmation hearing as CIA director today. Haspel was responsible for running a secret CIA black site in Thailand in 2002, where one prisoner was waterboarded 83 times and tortured in other ways. The former acting director of the CIA has also confirmed that in 2005 Haspel personally oversaw the destruction of videotapes showing torture at the black site. Today’s hearing will mark the first time Haspel will be forced to speak publicly about her role in the U.S. torture program. Among those seeking to testify about Haspel’s role is Guantánamo prisoner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused architect of the 9/11 attacks. He was held at secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan and Poland. It is not yet known whether Haspel was involved directly or indirectly in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s torture.
https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/germany-criminal-complaint-against-cia-director-gina-haspel/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/16/gina-haspel-cia-torture-vincent-warren
Betsy Devos is the current secretary of education of the United States of America. Devos is married to Dick Devos of the billionaire Amway family. Her and her family have donated heavily to right wing causes, at least $200 million since the 1970s to think tanks, media outlets, political committees, and advocacy groups. She supports vouchers for private, religious schools; conservative Christian groups like the Foundation for Traditional Values, which revokes the separation of church and state; and organizations like Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which has championed the privatization of the education system. (Mother jones)
Her right wing privatization advocacy has shown her main objective is to create a modern Christian theocracy while debilitating public education across the country.
Devos affirmed schools can and should report “illegal” immigrant children to ICE (this is unconstitutional and illegal) and also avoiding to answer whether states should allow schools to be able to discriminate against students based on physical handicaps, gender, or race.
Devos, much less known, is the sister of Erik Prince, who is the founder of the now defunct mercenary private contractor; Blackwater. Blackwater has been found guilty of committing many war crimes against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan during “the war on terror”.
Prince stated that Blackwater was fighting a holy war and it’s been exposed by his former close affiliates that he considered himself a crusader fighting against evil Muslims.
(Wiki) The most influential African American of the nineteenth century, Douglass made a career of agitating the American conscience. He spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education, and the abolition of capital punishment. But he devoted the bulk of his time, immense talent, and boundless energy to ending slavery and gaining equal rights for African Americans. These were the central concerns of his long reform career. Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and unyielding agitation. And he recognized that African Americans must play a conspicuous role in that struggle. Less than a month before his death, when a young black man solicited his advice to an African American just starting out in the world, Douglass replied without hesitation: "Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!"
Yes, my sin — my greater sin and even my greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran's oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world's greatest empire. This at the cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honor and my property. With God's blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.
Defending himself against a treason charge, on 19 December, 1953
Tom Drake is a former senior executive of the NSA and a decorated US navy veteran.
Drake blew the whistle on the Trailblazer Project and was subsequently charged with the Espionage Act by the US government in 2010. (Obama administration*)
All ten counts were dropped in 2011.
Aaron Hillel Swartz was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer and Internet hacktivist who was involved in the development of the web feed format RSS and the Markdown publishing format, the organization Creative Commons, the website framework web.py and the social news site, Reddit, in which he became a partner after its merger with his company, Infogami. He committed suicide while under federal indictment for data-theft, a prosecution that was characterized by his family as being "the product of a criminal-justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach". Swartz's work also focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism. He helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in 2009 to learn more about effective online activism. In 2010, he became a research fellow at Harvard University's Safra Research Lab on Institutional Corruption, directed by Lawrence Lessig. He founded the online group Demand Progress, known for its campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act.
“Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think.”
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz | Full Video
Gary Webb was an American investigative reporter. He won numerous awards and had a strong reputation for investigative journalism. He was hired by the San Jose Mercury news and is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series which appeared in the Mercury news in 1996. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-government Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to support their struggle. It also suggested that they may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency.
He published a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998. Webb committed suicide on 2004 shooting himself in the head twice. (Wiki)
https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/
Heȟáka Sápa was a famous wičháša wakȟáŋ and heyoka of the Oglala Lakota who lived in the present-day United States, primarily South Dakota. He was a second cousin of the war chief Crazy Horse.
"But now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people’s heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people’s dream that died in bloody snow."
(history.com) #SittingBull (c.1831-1890) was the Native American chief under whom the #Sioux tribes united in their struggle for survival on the North American Great Plains. Following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1874, the Sioux came into increased conflict with U.S. authorities. The Great Sioux wars of the 1870s would culminate in the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and a confederation of tribes would defeat federal troops under George Armstrong Custer. After several years in Canada, Sitting Bull finally surrendered to U.S. forces with his people on the brink of starvation, and was finally forced to settle on a reservation. In 1890, Sitting Bull was shot and killed while being arrested by U.S. and Indian agents, fearful that he would help lead the growing Ghost Dance movement aimed at restoring the Sioux way of life. Sitting Bull is remembered for his great courage and his stubborn determination to resist white domination.
Born in the Grand River Valley in what is now South Dakota, Sitting Bull, or Tatanka Yotanka, received early recognition from his tribe as a warrior and man of vision. "The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it."
"All that we are is a result of what we have thought"
