Take a stand for the environment, keep on standing, and divest from fossil fuels, a leading activist from Standing Rock, North Dakota told audiences at Mount Allison University on Feb. 7 and 8.
"I kind of think of Standing Rock as nothing more than a seed. It was to show the world we can do this," said LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a Lakota historian who founded the Sacred Stone camp in resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. "I truly believe the young people are the answer."
The Libraries & Archives brought Allard to campus so the Mount Allison community could hear her story of the Standing Rock resistance and learn from her about Indigenous and environmental activism.
In a talk to just over 100 people on a snowy Wednesday night, Allard recounted the spellbinding and at times horrifying story of her community's resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
"I am not an activist; I'm a historian," said Allard, who worked for 22 years in Standing Rock's Historic Preservation Office as a cultural planner and coordinator of protecting sacred sites. But after learning she was the closest landowner to the pipeline's route alongside Standing Rock Sioux land, she stepped up to establish the first resistance camp.
"We were just saying 'no'," says Allard, whose camp of seven teepees on April 1st, 2016 soon grew thousands 
strong. What followed is a story of solidarity, resistance, defeat, and then the success of a growing movement of resistance.
In 2016, the U.S. government gave approval for the massive, 1,886-km Dakota Access Pipeline to cross underneath the Missouri River, which runs alongside the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Members said the pipeline threatened water, their land, and burial grounds.
"How many know what it feels like to have people dig up your relatives?" Allard asked the audience.
Allard explained how she and others trying to stop the pipeline faced armed forces brandishing semi-automatic rifles, firing water cannons, tear gas, pepper spray, tasers, and rubber bullets. Armed forces also used attack dogs, and long-range acoustic device (LRAD) sound cannons that caused intense pain and nausea, said Allard.
"We were at war," she said, adding many people sustained permanent injuries.
"They tore down our school and our kitchen. They destroyed all our property," said Allard as she explained how the state governor and the National Guard evicted the water protectors from their camps -- even the camp on Allard's own land.
"We thought we were following the Constitution. We thought we had a right to stand up. We thought we had a right to say 'no.'," said Allard. "What I learned from this process was exactly the opposite. I learned that law is not just, and when you stand up for justice, you need to keep standing."
That lesson led Allard and fellow water protectors to begin a new campaign: Divest. Allard urged the audience to pull their own investments out of fossil fuel companies and invest locally. Drawing applause from the audience, she cited many national and international victories in persuading cities and nations to withdraw investments in companies that produce and sell fossil fuels.
The day after her talk, Allard met with Divest MTA to discuss the local and global divest movement. She gave a guest talk in a Geography and Environmental Studies class, and met with two additional classes of students. Throughout her visit, she stressed the importance, power, and skill of young people.
"We are entering into a big time of change, whether we like it or not," she told her audience. "You are living in a time of water wars. I think it's a core thing to fight for."
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