Although we haven’t really slept, although we’ve driven 40 plus hours in the last 5 days, and although there is still a lot of work to be done, most definitely including with the Native vote, we won.

Measure 11 failed here in South Dakota, but the real victory I can tell you was won in the trailers, dirt roads, and small communities who came to terms with standing up for change in a place that so often forgets them. Although the opposition is already threatening to bring it back, the efforts we’ve made since 2006 I don’t think will be forgotten and will hopefully keep us safe, especially in places that know only too well what it’s like to have the rest of your rights and freedoms taken away.

Several Native women also got into office, and it was with tears of joy that we celebrated with them, making chilli, soup and sandwiches, for the masses that also came in to share in this victory for us all, from reservation to reservation.

I’m off now to the Santee Sioux reservation in Nebraska to spend the rest of the week doing Indigenous women’s empowerment facilitation because I know that this is where the fight must continue on, but I’ll leave you with some of these pictures we took along our journey.

I’m not in total agreement with the whole “First Americans” slogan, but I’m proud to stand here with Diane Kastner from the Lower Brule reservation, who ran for House District 11.

No on 11, where we inserted culturally appropriate materials to deliver to our Native communities

On the Crow Creek reservation

My car tagged up in full force to get out the vote to as many communities as we could on election day!