DVD available from Nebraskans for Peace.
Film Study Guide available for DOWNLOAD.
Check UPCOMING SCREENINGS for public showings.
The Battle for Whiteclay was awarded Best Political Documentary at the 2009 New York International Independent Film Festival.
Published Sunday August 29, 2010
BY RICK GALUSHA
OMAHA WORLD-HERALD (Midlands Voices)
Nebraskans are shocked to learn that a portion of the second-poorest area in the entire Western Hemisphere lies within our state, in the area that includes the Pine Ridge Reservation. Consider the following figures from the 2002-03 edition of Regional Differences in Indian Health, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Read the rest of this entry »
Published Tuesday Aug 17, 2010 / Updated Thursday Aug 19, 2010
INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include a clarification of the position of the governor’s office on the matter of jurisdiction over the town of Whiteclay. The governor’s office does not respond to nor speak on behalf of political parties. Read the rest of this entry »
Published Tuesday Aug 17, 2010
By STEPHANIE WOODARD
INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY
LINCOLN, Neb. – Crime in the town of Whiteclay, Neb., which sells some four million cans of beer and malt liquor annually, almost entirely to Oglala Sioux Tribe members from the dry Pine Ridge Reservation, is not Nebraska’s responsibility, said Ashley Cradduck, spokeswoman for the state’s governor, Dave Heineman, a Republican. “The Indians are coming from Pine Ridge, and that’s in South Dakota.” Read the rest of this entry »
Published Sunday July 18, 2010
BY JOMAY STEEN
RAPID CITY JOURNAL
WHITECLAY, Neb. – While beer sales get most of the attention, some Whiteclay businesses survive and even prosper without selling alcohol.
Firmly rooted in Whiteclay, Lewis Abold and his son, Lou, opened their general merchandise store, Abe’s New and Used, about three years ago on Halloween. “This is our third summer,” Lewis Abold said. Read the rest of this entry »
Published Sunday July 18, 2010
BY MARY GARRIGAN
RAPID CITY JOURNAL
WHITECLAY, Neb. — Business is booming in Whiteclay, and it’s not just the 4.6 million cans of beer sold there last year.
Many people know Whiteclay as the small, unincorporated village on the border of Nebraska and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a tiny spot on the map with a big alcohol problem. It’s where four beer stores sold 191,649 cases of beer in 2009, according to the Nebraska Liquor Commission. That translates into about 4.6 million cans. Read the rest of this entry »
Published Saturday July 17, 2010
BY MARY GARRIGAN
RAPID CITY JOURNAL
The irony of Whiteclay is that it sits in what was originally a “buffer zone” created by the U.S. government to “protect” the residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation from illegal whiskey peddlers operating in the area.
In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur decreed a 50-square-mile buffer zone in Nebraska south of the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota to protect Native Americans from the ravages of alcohol, according to the web site for the documentary film, “Battle for Whiteclay.” In 1889, and again in 1890, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation incorporating this buffer zone, known as the White Clay Extension, into the boundaries of the reservation. But in a 1904 executive order by President Theodore Roosevelt, 49 of the 50 square miles of the White Clay Extension was placed into the public domain over the protests of Lakota elders and others concerned that the need for a buffer zone still remained. Today, there is still one square mile of Pine Ridge tribal land in Nebraska near Whiteclay, the remnant of President Arthur’s buffer zone. Read the rest of this entry »
Published Monday July 12, 2010
BY TIM GIAGO
INDIANZ.COM
Prohibition doesn’t work!
It lasted 13 years in America and gave life to nationally syndicated crime, the income tax and opposition by the United States Brewers’ Association to Women’s Suffrage: the right for women to vote. Read the rest of this entry »
Published Tuesday July 06, 2010
THE CHADRON RECORD
By the Rapid City Journal
Oglala Sioux Tribe police officers set up alcohol checkpoints outside Whiteclay on Thursday, July 1 but reports that alcohol being taken to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was confiscated were disputed by tribal officials. Read the rest of this entry »
Published Monday July 5, 2010
BY RANDALL HOWELL (Native Sun News Managing Editor)
NATIVE AMERICAN TIMES
WHITE CLAY, Neb. –– They will be back like a bad hangover.
And, they’ll be setting up what has become known as the Whiteclay Blockade – a blockade that serves as a one-day barrier to what amounts to the smuggling of alcohol – beer, mostly – onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Read the rest of this entry »
Published Friday July 2, 2010
BY MARY GARRIGAN
RAPID CITY JOURNAL
Oglala Sioux Tribe police officers set up alcohol checkpoints outside Whiteclay, Neb., on Thursday and confiscated 52 cases of beer that were being transported to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, according to a blockade organizer. Read the rest of this entry »