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PIERRE | In the first address to a joint session of the Legislature from a South Dakota tribal leader, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier on Thursday denounced racism, applauded the governor's pursuit of Medicaid expansion and urged lawmakers to provide more funding for roads in Native American Country.

State and tribal officials called the speech "historic." Leaders from other South Dakota tribes, including the Crow Creek, Lower Brule and Oglala Sioux, also attended the event, at which Frazier spoke of the difficulties tribal members face across the state.

"We are born pure of heart. How we treat each other is taught and learned," Frazier said in the inaugural State of the Tribes address. "It is time we re-learned to treat each other with the respect that's deserved rather than with hatred and racism. Only then can we become nations working together for the health and welfare of our people."

He asked the state to help fund county roads on the reservations, recalling that a tribal councilman had joked that driving on one felt like he was "shooting a machine gun."

"We drive it every day, we live it every day, and that's what gets us by ... is humor," he said. "If you don't have that humor, you're going to have a sense of hopelessness."