SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Approximately 1,000 people turned out for the Sgennonh Unity March to draw attention to violence, injustice and police brutality they say is being inflicted on protesters of the Standing Rock oil pipeline in North Dakota.

For four hours, elders and children led the march. Elders are the knowledge holders and children are the ones who will deal with the consequences, said a woman on a megaphone.

More women, children, elders, men - Indigenous and non-Indigenous - walked six miles with a police escort from the Onondaga Nation Arena on Route 11 to Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse.

Drivers honked. Onlookers waved, smiled, clapped and put their fist in the air.

Three women came out of a house on Salina Street and yelled, "Yeah! Leave our water alone!"

The crowded chanted, "Mni Wiconi," which means water is life in Lakota. Other sayings yelled were "You can't drink oil, keep it in the soil," "We stand with Standing Rock" and "We the people will never be defeated."

Volunteers handed out snacks and water on the side of the road, and gave rides to participants who could not walk the entire six miles.

Local community members wanted to the bring awareness to the water protectors fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, said Awhenjiosta Myers, one of the many Indigenous women organizers of the march.

"Injustice and brutality are being inflicted on water protectors," Myers said, an Onondaga Nation citizen, who just returned last week from Standing Rock. "There are innocent people standing in North Dakota unarmed being shot, tazed, being pepper sprayed, being beaten with batons, being humiliated."

On Oct. 27, water protectors and police officers came to a standoff when the officers forcefully removed campers with a sound cannon, concussion grenades, batons, pepper spray and bean-bag bullets from the Oceti Sakowin Treaty Camp set on treaty land. The United States government promised land to the Lakota as part of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.

The Energy Transfers oil company is set to build the 1,172-mile crude-oil pipeline through 50 counties in four states.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe said the pipeline's route under the Missouri River will contaminate the tribe's only water supply and destroy ancestral, sacred land and burial sites.

Initially, the proposed route was north of Bismarck and rerouted due to concerns of polluting the city's drinking water.

Syracuse resident Jan Cuipylo joined the march in Nedrow after taking photos.

"My heart was so filled watching while the police cars and then everybody else came up over the hill," she said. "A lot of our brothers and sisters are being brutalized by the American government basically. We're not being protected, and if we don't speak up, we're not going to have any water left."

Another march participant, Jackie Old Coyote-Logan, citizen of the Crow Nation in Montana, said water is the most powerful force in the world.

"This movement is about protecting the integrity of the Earth," she said, who resides in Oneida Nation. "Just that word 'integrity' means human. This needs to be happening around the world."

Those who traveled to North Dakota, such as Joe Heath, Jason Corwin and Jeanne Shenandoah, spoke in Clinton Square after singing, drumming and dancing.

Shenandoah said she talked with people in Standing Rock about the desecration of their ancestors' graves and sacred spaces.

"What would happen if the grave of your grandmother was completely disregarded and plowed over for the sake of somebody's greed?" she said. "Pray for the protectors. Pray for the oppressors."

Even after the traumatic confrontation two weeks ago and continuous flight of planes over the camps, the people are not giving up.

Myers just returned from Standing Rock after taking donations and supplies collected from the benefit concert on Onondaga Nation about two weeks ago.

The $7,000 raised from the concert went to chainsaws, axes and large supplies needed for the camp, she said.

"Being there with the people last week, you could feel they're tired but you can still feel their strength, you can still feel their unity," Myers said. "You can still feel the power in the camp."