SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Even before the U.S. Army Corps. Of Engineers announced Sunday that it would not grant an easement near the Standing Rock reservation for the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), a group of activists made plans to protest the pipeline along busy south Campbell Avenue in Springfield.



Many of the activists KOLR10 News spoke with Sunday now feel connected to the natives in North Dakota because they spent time over the Thanksgiving holiday on the reservation. Protestors organized outside of a U.S. Bank because it is one of the financial institutions loaning money to the pipeline’s suppliers.



Sometimes standing up for what one believes is right is not popular, as was the case with 18-year-old Andrew Davis.



“Some kids just, they were in a car, they drove around the bend here,” Davis said. “They yelled something I can’t say on TV and then a water bottle hit me right on the side here.”



Davis thought standing by the road and holding a sign was the least he could do to spread awareness about Standing Rock after he spent his Thanksgiving at the protest camps.



“I was at the camp for 5 days, so I got to know many of the people that were there,” Davis said. “And I have built up a strong bond with those people. And I want to help them whichever way I can.”



“I went there thinking that I was a pretty good person, but I came back an even better person,” said Vickie Kepling of the Greater Springfield Green Party.



Kepling organized the Green Party’s Thanksgiving trip to North Dakota. She said she learned the natives there look at the whole, not just the part that affects them.



“In our culture, we’re so individualistic that we don’t see that when we pollute, it actually harms our future generations,” Kepling said.



Kepling calls the activists up in North Dakota and back here at home optimists by nature.



“If we didn’t think that we could make a change, we wouldn’t be out here doing what we’re doing,” Kepling said. “We know that there are hundreds of pipelines going underneath rivers and different places but this is where people are making a stand.”



“Even if the pipeline is built, I hope that this says something, that we’re not going to be pushed around by big oil anymore,” Davis said.



About an hour after KOLR10 News visited the protest Sunday, the Army Corps. of Engineers made its announcement.

