"WASHINGTON — Dozens of Indigenous leaders held a sit-in Thursday at the Interior Department in Washington, D.C., in an effort to stop the extractive fossil fuel industries.

Jennifer Falcon, Nakoda, Lakota and Dakota, with Indigenous Rising Media, was inside and said before Thursday’s sit-in at the Bureau of Indian Affairs that they warned President Joe Biden to “respect us or expect us” and he didn’t listen.

“So we're going to keep showing up until we die,” Falcon said.

There’s been a historic surge in Indigenous resistance in Washington since Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Monday, where “expect us” was written on a Andrew Jackson’s statue. On Thursday, roughly 55 Indigenous leaders were at the federal agency for a sit-in in what is believed to be for the first time since the 1970s."

Jourdan Bennett-Begaye reports for Indian Country Today October 14, 2021. [2]