Tuesday, August 30th 2016, 10:49 pm
Donations from Oklahoma are coming in by the truckload to Native Americans trying to stop a pipeline project in North Dakota.
One Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen just returned from there and is now trying to gather support for the citizens of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
A pipeline company and Native Americans are at a standstill in North Dakota. The Standing Rock Sioux are trying to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from going through their land and natural resources.
The peaceful protest is getting attention from several Oklahoma tribes; Muscogee (Creek) Nation Citizen Rojer Johnson decided to visit the standoff himself.
"You see people fighting for their life, essentially. Sustainability of their life," he said.
Johnson only brought a few supplies with him on the 16-hour trip.
"It was unreal; very surreal,” he said. “You read about it in our history books. It's all around us. It seems like Native Americans have been forgotten about. Well, you get up there and it almost seems that's a true story."
He returned to Oklahoma looking for support and found it from his own tribe.
Johnson said, "As a fellow native brother, just like from me to you guys, we love you. Got to pray with a few people and took it from there."
Just this week, the Kialegee Tribe and Cherokee Nation sent pallets of supplies on semis to North Dakota.
8/27/2016 Related Story: Local Native American Group Travels To Protest N.D. Pipeline
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation expects its donation drive to grow with a truck coming this week.
And the word is spreading across the tribe; people are donating essential goods, like bottled water.
Nancy Mason said the Standing Rock Sioux need attention, and this is a way people can get involved.
"This threatens sovereignty as well as resources that people need. We have to have water to live, and so, it's a major issue," she said.
Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners is behind the thousand-mile pipeline project. A federal judge is expected to rule next week on whether the pipeline project would be stopped.
August 30th, 2016
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