PRESS STATEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 20, 2021
Contact:
Lauren Zehyoue Email: lauren@kairoscenter.org
Phone: 214-356-0313
The Poor People’s Campaign Stands in Solidarity with the Spiritual Convoy of the Apache Stronghold
San Francisco, CA— Today, the Kairos Center, Repairers of the Breach, and the Poor People’s Campaign will stand in full solidarity with the Apache Stronghold as they fight to protect their sacred land of Oak Flat. In a hearing with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Apache Stronghold will seek to stop a land swap with a multinational mining company that will completely destroy the sacred land and devastate the Apaches’ religious life. If the court doesn’t intervene, the government will turn this historically protected land and sacred place where the Apache practice their most important religious ceremonies over to a Resolution Copper and into a 2-mile-wide crater deep enough to fit the Eiffel Tower.
Poor People’s Campaign National Co-chair and Kairos Center Director Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis explains, “This struggle is at the core of what the Poor People’s Campaign is fighting for. The Apache people have already been misused, abused and disrespected by the United States government throughout our history, and now corporations are being allowed to violate the place where Apache ancestors received their covenant with God. In addition to the horrific genocide of indigenous people, continued voter suppression, and other systemic disenfranchisement, the Apache people must now battle corporations entitlement to exploit their most sacred lands. We stand in solidarity with the Apache people as they fight for the right to worship. The Poor People’s Campaign is committed to a Third Reconstruction, one which rights the wrongs of this nation’s past, including its treatment of indigenous populations.”
Today, October 20 at 4:00pm PST, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis is speaking at the prayer service and rally in support of the Apache Stronghold Spiritual Convoy to the 9th Circuit Court, a two week journey from Arizona to the Bay Area in California before their hearing on Friday October 22.
Poor People’s Campaign National Co-chair and President of Repairers of the Breach Rev. Dr. William Barber II said, “From day one, the fight of the Apache people at Oak Flat has been our fight. The fight is a moral fight, a land fight, a fight against corporate greed trampling poor people, and it is a fight of political retaliation against the people who represent America’s first story. Oak Flat is as sacred as Mt. Sinai, as Mecca, as the National Cathedral, and it’s theirs and should not be plundered, stolen and robbed of its substance. The courts need to step in and stop this crime.”
“My people are pleading with the court to stop this unconstitutional destruction of native land and preserve Oak Flat so that we can continue taking our children and our grandchildren there to worship and pray,” said Dr. Wendsler Nosie, Sr. of Apache Stronghold and Poor People’s Campaign Steering Committee Member.
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