Two Liberation Movements, Intertwined | The Daily Yonder

The vision of Lucille Contreras (Lipan Apache), CEO & founder of the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project, is to revive and reconnect all the tribes of Texas through a regenerative herd of American bison, or Iyane’e. Contreras learned to care for bison on the Pine Ridge reservation, then purchased 77 acres in rural Gonzalez County, Texas, in 2020 with a new farmer-rancher loan from the USDA. The herd of 34 bison has grown from the initial eight acquired in 2021.

The “Land Back” movement seeks to restore a people to sacred stewardship of their ancestral lands, and successes like the one in Texas are happening across the country. The work of the NDN Collective, a South Dakota-based international Indigenous organization, is just another example.

Nick Tilsen (Oglala Lakota), the founder of NDN Collective, explains that a Land Back ethic doesn’t mean going back in time, but moving forward with all people to create a just and equitable world.

Contreras and Tilsen have found common cause as members of the Black Liberation-Indigenous Sovereignty Collective, co-founded by Trevor Smith (a Black man) and Savannah Romero (an Indigenous woman and citizen of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe). According to Romero, most Land Back successes in their member organizations are in rural areas of Indian Country or near reservation communities.

The BLIS Collective serves as a hub to connect leaders in the Land Back movement with those seeking reparations, or healing and restoration, for African American people injured because of their group identity. By promoting a braided narrative of justice for both Black and Indigenous people, BLIS includes dozens of member organizations who work to articulate the intrinsic tie between Land Back and reparations.