







[American Indian voice: Rick Two Dogs]

You know, history, when you break it down it means "his story," which is really the story of the dominant culture. And we all know historically that the -- I guess the conquerors are the ones that write the history, you know, and it's really never based on the people that were supposedly conquered.

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The last chapter in any successful genocide is the one in which the oppressor can remove their hands and say, "My god, what are these people doing to themselves, they are killing each other, they are killing themselves!"

[Aaron Huey:]

When I first got to Pine Ridge, I didn't really get it. All my first assignments were about poverty and violence and gangs and all those stories skimmed the surface. And now, six years later, now that I know the real story, I realize that mainstream American magazines won't print it.

The real story is the history -- a history of broken treaties, of prisoner of war camps, and massacres. It's too hard to look at. It's too dark. It's too layered and too painful to fit in between shampoo ads and car commercials. This project has reached the limits of print media.

I don't want you to give me money today for a book or a gallery show, where everybody drinks wine and looks at beautiful pictures of suffering. I want to take the images I've made over the past six years on Pine Ridge and put them on billboards. I want to put them in subways. I want to put them on the sides of busses. I want to put them in places where people can't ignore them.

I'm here today asking for your participation in a project that will illuminate a hidden history and empower a community. This is a grassroots information campaign. Your involvement, not just your money, is crucial. We will need help distributing these images in your communities.

Several partners have already joined me in this cause, including Ernesto Yerena, an activist and artist from Los Angeles who created visuals for the Alto Arizona campaign. Ernesto is collaborating with me to create a poster series based on my photographs that transcends these depressing statistics.



This collaborative image is the first of many that we will make in February. Also joining us will be Shephard Fairey, the most prolific street artist working in America, widely known for his ongoing Obey propaganda and Obama's Hope campaign. If anybody can raise an issue to icon status, it's him.





My collaborations with Ernesto and Shephard will go up on walls in cities all across America. We will be working hand in hand with Lakota and other indigenous rights organizations to produce this work, sharing resources through a website I have created at honorthetreaties.org.

Remember, this project is not a charity. It's about turning awareness into action.