No. 89637-132.
Mike
Last Modified:
12:21 a.m. 8/10/2002
By Matt Moline
Special to The Capital-Journal
Chief Thin Elk
LAWRENCE -- Few Americans could identify an inmate in the U.S. Bureau
of Prisons system by his government name: No. 89637-132.
But two young boys in Central America can. Prisoner 89637-132 is the
youths' foster parent.
So can Indian students attending New York University's law school.
Inmate 89637-132 raises money to support a scholarship fund.
And clients of women's shelters in America's impoverished Indian
reservations count on the toy and clothing drives organized from a
Kansas prison cell by No. 89637-132 -- better known as Leonard
Peltier.
Peltier is the American Indian Movement leader who is serving two life
prison sentences at U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth for the 1975
shooting deaths of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Reservation in South
Dakota.
Imprisoned for more than 25 years, Peltier continues his jailhouse
philanthropy through the efforts of the Leonard Peltier Defense
Committee, the Lawrence-based international group whose supporters
said that an innocent man is behind bars at Leavenworth.
Over the years, thousands of contributors have responded to Peltier's
calls to aid public service agencies on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud
reservations in South Dakota, including Head Start programs, medical
clinics and women's shelters, reports LPDC events coordinator Denis
Moynihan.
"He puts out the calls and we provide the implementation, and that's
mostly through direct mail and through other ancillary networks,"
Moynihan said. "In any event, the word seems to get out, and people
want to support his efforts."
Head Dancer
The 58-year-old Peltier also has become an accomplished self-taught
artist, whose oil paintings reflect the artist's commitment to Indian
culture, Moynihan said.
Although recent purchasers have been private collectors, including
motion picture director Oliver Stone and actor Peter Coyote, Peltier
frequently donates his artwork to charitable organizations, such as
the Canadian group in British Columbia that is planning an auction of
a painting next month.
In the artist's 1999 autobiography, Peltier writes about the human
need to maintain a creative impulse, especially in a hostile,
dehumanizing environment such as a prison.
Peltier, who traces his ancestry to the Dakota Sioux and Chippewa
tribes, was born in 1944 on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North
Dakota.
"Through my painting I can be with my people, in touch with my
culture, tradition and spirit," he writes. "I can watch little
children in regalia, dancing and smiling, see my elders in prayer,
behold the intense glow of a warrior's eye."
http://cjonline.com/stories/081102/kan_peltier.shtml