Dennis Banks' Sacred Run to Bush ranch

Dennis Banks' Sacred Run to Bush Ranch

By Brenda Norrell

SAN FRANCISCO -- Dennis Banks, longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, leaves San Francisco on the Sacred Run on Friday, with a caravan headed to the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Banks said this year's Sacred Run caravan will take the message of
peace to George Bush's home. The caravan will also scout out the route
for next year's 30th Anniversary of the Longest Walk.

There will be a Longest Walk meeting at the Intertribal Friendship
House, 523 International Blvd, in Oakland, California, (between 5th and
6th Avenues) on Feb. 14th at 6 p.m.

The Caravan to Crawford will leave on Friday morning, February 16.

Banks said, "Because the 2008 event will be a 30-year rewalk of the
1978 walk, many people will be walking with us: elders, families,
children, and people from many walks of life. We expect the number of
participants to be in the hundreds as we leave San Francisco, and
thousands as we arrive in Washington, D.C. We will need help, lots of
help!"

Jimbo Simmons, staff at the International Indian Treaty Council in San
Francisco, said efforts would focus on bringing more attention to the
need to protect American Indian sacred places.

Simmons, among those on the Longest Walk in 1978, said Banks organized
the Longest Walk while at DQ University in California, during a time
when there was a push for the abrogation of Indian Treaties and
reservations.

The Longest Walk of 1978 will be honored during the anniversary Longest
Walk and include a collection of photos and videos now being organized.

The Sacred Run caravan to Crawford, Texas, and Banks' message of peace,
comes as the United States Congress is focused on the war in Iraq.

Earlier, in August of 2005, Banks visited Camp Casey in Crawford and
honored Cindy Sheehan for her fight for justice.

While thanking Banks and the others who came in support, Sheehan
remembered her own son's death in Iraq.

"So it is official, Casey had his blood shed in Iraq for OIL," Sheehan
wrote.

"He died so we could pay over 3.00/gallon for gas. Like I suspected all
along, my dear, sweet son: almost 1900 others; and tens of thousands of
innocent Iraqis died so the oil fields wouldn't 'fall into the hands of
terrorists' and so George and his immoral band of greedy robber barons
could become wealthier."

For more information on the Sacred Run:
Sacred Run 2007 & 2008
http://www.sacredrun.org
--International Indian Treaty Council
Jimbo Simmons: jimbosimmons@yahoo.com
Telephone (415)641-4482