Supporters of Native activist Leonard Peltier hold White House rally, urging Biden to grant clemency

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hundreds of activists and Indigenous leaders rallied outside the White House on Tuesday to support Leonard Peltier on the imprisoned activist’s 79th birthday, holding signs and chanting slogans urging President Joe Biden to grant clemency to the Native American leader.

Peltier is serving life in prison for the killing of two FBI agents during a 1975 standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was convicted in 1977.

Key figures involved in Peltier’s prosecution have stepped forward over the years to urge his release, rally organizers said, including the judge who presided over Peltier’s 1986 appeal and the former U.S. attorney whose office handled the prosecution and appeal.

Tuesday’s rally kicked off with chanting and drumbeats. Organizers delivered impassioned speeches about Peltier’s life and his importance as a Indigenous leader, punctuated by shouts of “Free Peltier! Free Peltier!”

The rally’s organizers said Peltier wrote a statement, which was read aloud in front of the White House, in which he thanked the people who have pushed for his release.

“I hope to breathe free air before I die. Hope is a hard thing to hold, but no one is strong enough to take it from me,” Peltier wrote. “There is a lot of work left to do. I would like to get out and join you in doing it.”

“Forty-eight years is long enough,” said Nick Tilsen, president of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy group that co-organized the rally with Amnesty International USA.