Politics News

One Delegate's Story

A Long Journey From Pine Ridge

By Richard Martin, 8-28-08

He's my candidate too

Having finagled my way onto the floor of Invesco Field, I watched the address by Barack Obama with the South Dakota delegation, seated just to the right of the stage. There I met Cecelia Fire Thunder.

Chatting with Fire Thunder – an imposing woman of impressive bulk and a face that belongs on the side of a mountain – I didn’t know her back story. She’s a licensed nurse, she told me, with two sons and two granddaughters. She’s from Kyle, S.D. and she was a Hillary supporter. Asked if she planned to vote for Obama, who was about to take the stage, she said “Of course. We’re Democrats.”

I asked her what she hoped for from Obama’s speech. “I don’t really expect anything,” she said at first, but then said, “The whole world is watching I hope that all the complacent Americans, the ones who’ve given up, have endured all these years and had to give up food and medicine cause they can’t afford gas, I hope they realize it’s time to pick up this country and get it standing up again.”

Later, searching the Web back in the pressroom, I read about her full story.

Born on October 24, 1946 in Pine Ridge, S.D., Cecelia Fire Thunder left the Oglala Sioux reservation there when she was 15 and returned 16 years later as a nurse. She became an advocate for women’s issues and better health care on the reservation. She made traditional dolls, and led the community health and wellness programs. In 2004 she was elected the first female president of the Oglala Sioux nation. Two years later she was impeached and removed from office.

Her crime: defying South Dakota’s complete ban on abortion by attempting to bring a Planned Parenthood clinic to the reservation. Fire Thunder “met the anti-abortion movement and lost,” according to the Women’s Space blog. At the tribal council meeting at which she was removed from office, she told the council that “ideas and opinions are not punishable.”

As Fire Thunder waved her small American flag, the elk teeth on her traditional Sioux dress vibrating, Obama took the stage to a three-minute standing ovation.

“Now is not the time for small plans,” Obama told the crowd, saying that “We have lost our sense of common purpose.”

While Americans may disagree on abortion, he added, “surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.”

Along with the rest of the South Dakota Democrats, Fire Thunder applauded. It was a long way from Pine Ridge, but she seemed right at home.

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