This week’s CAIRNS Etanhan Wotanin column explores examples of the ongoing discrimination against American Indians across our state. The column, “Teaching Discrimination in South Dakota,” can be read now by clicking here, or later this week in the Lakota Times newspaper.

The image above is an excerpt from an April 12, 2011 letter from South Dakota Assistant Attorney General, John Guhin, to  State’s Attorney for Bennett County, Gay Tollefson, regarding a request by the Oglala Sioux Tribe to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) “to take 5 acres of church property into trust” status. The Superintendent of the BIA would make the decision. Bennett County fought, and continues to fight, every effort by tribal citizens and the Oglala Sioux Tribe to return land within the boundaries of the county to Indian trust status.