Alex White Plume (Lakota) - Discrimination in Indian Country

Alex White Plume is the former Tribal President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. From November 2004 to June 29, 2006, he served as Vice-President for the tribe. However, after Cecilia Fire Thunder, the tribal president, was impeached, White Plume assumed the role as president. He was succeeded by John Yellowbird Steele. Alex White Plume, the only farmer to plant, cultivate, produce, sell and deliver a hemp crop within the borders of the USA since 1968. The 1851 Ft. Laramie Treaty recognizes the Lakota as a sovereign nation and grants that the Lakota of the Pine Ridge Reservation can grow any food or fiber crop. In 1998, the Tribal Government for the Pine Ridge Reservation, (comprising all of Shannon Co., So. Dak., the poorest county in the U.S.--with 85% unemployment) legally separated industrial hemp from "marijuana", specifically allowing hemp. Hemp is a perfect crop for the near-desert climate, requiring moderate moisture and no crop chemicals, while providing the potential for all the nutritional and economic gains the area desperately needs. Alex White Plume, has grown industrial hemp on his land since 2000. That year and every year since, the DEA, with helicopters and machine guns, have confiscated the crops (legal in the sovereign nation in which it was grown), costing taxpayers more than $1,000,000.00. In 2006 the Federal Appellate Court ruled against White Plume's appeal of the seizures. 2006 also saw the release of the film Standing Silent Nation, a documentary about the White Plumes and their hemp crop. In December 2007, Alex and Debra White Plume's home was destroyed in a house fire.