2016-2017 – A Class Action for Standing Rock
Updated 4/16/2025 by Sondra Wilson.
In 2016, soon after Kevin Ray Byrd and I were defrauded and threatened by Kern County Sheriffs, several members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (who are actually called the Hunkpapa – “Standing Rock” is the English Name) put forth a public cry for people to come “Stand with Standing Rock”.
Calling themselves “Water Protectors” instead of “protesters”, they were in fact protesting the illegal development of the Dakota Access Pipeline that was being developed through their ancestral burial grounds (think of a pipeline being built across a local cemetery, and bones being dug up) and across the tribe’s only source of drinking water.
“Water Protectors” pointed out that this was not just about them – it was about the entire Missouri River endangered for when – not “if” the pipeline bursts.
Page currently being reworked. Please check back soon. 4/16/2025.
The Dakota Access Pipeline Projects appears prima facie to have been illegally approved
was on-the-ground approximately a year and a half building a navigable archive and class action lawsuit to counterr the illegally-approved Dakota Access Pipeline Project (DAPL).
Regrettably, without basic survival funds – let alone resources to finish building the case – what we are left with is this really amazing archive:
www.StandingRockClassAction.org
While I built the foundation for the archive from www.NoDaplArchive.com, water protectors aided me in organizing them, bringing them into legal context, and writing descriptions for the hundreds of videos found throughout the site. I am currently working in Iowa working on my law degree so I can be of better help against injustices in the future. It was truly a humbling honor to stand alongside the Hunkpapa people – to stand up for the water and for respect to the people. I only wish I could have done more.. I am so grateful for such a life changing experience, and the respect, education, and forgiveness I was shown by the beautiful people I met at the water protector camps.