After 49 years in prison, Native American activist Leonard Peltier was released on Feb. 18. And now his Indigenous community is celebrating with a "welcome home" event.
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians citizen and former American Indian Movement (AIM) activist had been serving two life sentences for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents during a shootout involving more than 30 people on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The shootout also left one Native activist dead.
Peltier's trial, however, had been criticized for alleged misconduct, drawing rebuke from not only Native activists but also world leaders. For decades, supporters campaigned for his release, but the remainder of Peltier's sentence was commuted on Jan. 20 by former President Joe Biden.
“Today I am finally free! They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit!” Peltier said in a statement on Tuesday. “Thank you to all my supporters throughout the world who fought for my freedom. I am finally going home. I look forward to seeing my friends, my family and my community. It’s a good day today.”
Peltier was released from a Coleman federal prison in Florida and will spend the rest of his life in home confinement in his tribal homeland in North Dakota. NDN Collective, a Native American-led organization led by its Oglala Lakota founder and CEO, Nick Tilsen, facilitated his move back to his family home.
For Tilsen, seeing Peltier released was “powerful.”
“He came walking out through those doors, and he was confident. He shook the hands of all of the corrections officers and the transition staff, and they were all supportive of him leaving,” Tilsen said. “He was dignified, and he was respected by all of them. And they were all happy to see him go home.”
In a strange coincidence that Tilsen saw as symbolic, “The front doors of Coleman PS1, they wouldn't shut. They were broken,” he said.
“They had a maintenance guy and then a corrections officer come up, come over. And it was so crazy that literally the front door of Coleman PS1 was broken open,” he continued. “It was broken open literally until Leonard came walking through those doors.”
After arriving in North Dakota, Peltier said, "I am not broken."
A symbol for many in the Native American community
Since his imprisonment, the 80-year-old activist has served as a symbol for many of the continued oppression of Native American people in the U.S., because his trial was reportedly marked by instances of witness coercion, withheld evidence and juror bias, Indigenous activists as well as notable figures including Pope Francis, Nelson Mandela, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders had called for clemency for Peltier.
While the activist admitted to being present at the shootout, he has maintained his innocence in the killings of the officers, who were shot at close range, according to the FBI.
Even a former U.S. attorney whose predecessor prosecuted the case noted that Peltier's presence at the shootout with a weapon was what ultimately led to his conviction rather than any evidence that he fired the fatal shots. Notably, the other two activists who were also tried were acquitted. The death of the Native activist involved in the shootout was never investigated.
“How Leonard Peltier was treated was emblematic of how Indigenous people have been treated by the United States government since the founding of this country,” Tilsen said, arguing that this explained was why world leaders had come to Peltier’s defense. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States government was waging a war, and they were violating Indigenous people's human rights in the process, and they violated his human rights.”
The FBI has consistently opposed Peltier’s release, which had come up during several presidential administrations.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray even sent a private letter to Biden, saying, "Granting Peltier any relief from his conviction or sentence is wholly unjustified and would be an affront to the rule of law," according to the Associated Press.
The reaction from the Native community itself has been mixed, due to Peltier's rumored connection to the murder of fellow AIM member Annie Mae Aquash, whose life was detailed in the 2024 Hulu documentary series Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae. Peltier has denied any involvement in her death.
Only a week after Biden commuted Peltier's sentence, the Indigenous-produced documentary Free Leonard Peltier, directed by Jesse Short Bull and David France, about his time in prison and the decades-long effort to free him, debuted on Jan. 27 at the Sundance Film Festival.
Filmmakers had to scramble to adjust the ending, although as the Comanche-Blackfeet producer Jhane Myers previously told Yahoo, "This is something that we always prepared for, because we had hoped that this would happen."
Welcoming Peltier back to his homeland
Wednesday’s ceremony in Belcourt, N.D., is expected to attract between 400-500 people, according to Tilsen. There will be elders and spiritual leaders offering prayers, along with singers and dancers.
“[Peltier is] going to address the community and the people and Indian country,” Tilsen explained. “The ceremony and the celebration is really the most important thing for that day and to welcome him back here, back into his homelands and back to the community and to the people.”
As for what comes next, Tilsen said he hopes Peltier’s release and return home helps illuminate “what has happened to Indian people, so that it doesn't continue to happen.”
“Justice for Indigenous people is justice for people everywhere,” he added. “We have to be able to enter into an era of building a culture of repair and acknowledgment in this country, rather than one of erasure and ignorance.”
