Activists mark year since official halt to liquor sales in Whiteclay

Indianz.com

October 8, 2018  

It's been a year since Nebraska's highest court officially put an end to liquor sales in Whiteclay, a small town near the border of the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The September 27, 2017, decision capped off decades of work by Native activists and allies who said the sales exploited citizens of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The met in the town last week to call for further action to address other issues, such as bootlegging and series of unsolved deaths, The Lincoln Journal Star reported.

“Because of our work, 3.7 million cans of beer have not been sold to people who have no legal place to drink it in Whiteclay,” Winnebago activist Frank LaMere said at the gathering, the paper reported. “And if that alcohol is still finding its way to Pine Ridge ... we’re going to hold people’s feet to the fire, and that includes the Nebraska State Patrol, the state of Nebraska, the state of South Dakota and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.”