A Dry Reservation Clashes With Its Liquor Store Neighbors

Charles Michael Ray — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:48:00 +0000

At the Pine Ridge Reservation just outside the town of Whiteclay, Neb., an upside-down American flag flies on a wooden pole next to a teepee. About 60 people gathered here Monday to protest as beer truck drivers unloaded cases into a Whiteclay liquor store a few hundred yards away.

Whiteclay has one paved street and four liquor stores. Alcohol is banned on Pine Ridge, but alcoholism is rampant here and the unemployment rate hovers around 80 percent. The town sells the equivalent of about 5 million cans of beer annually — mostly to impoverished tribal residents.

Native Americans To Soon Receive Settlement Checks

Charles Michael Ray — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:04:00 +0000

Federal officials are working to send out $1,000 checks in the next few weeks to hundreds of thousands of Native Americans. The money stems from a settlement of the Cobell case, a landmark $3.4 billion settlement over mismanagement of federal lands held in trust for Native American people.

The case was brought by Elouise Cobell, a member of Montana's Blackfeet Tribe, and four other Native Americans in 1996.

On South Dakota's Native American reservations, reactions are mixed.