from Michael Eckhardt, May31, 1999

Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance
by Leonard Peltier
Harvey Arden (Editor)
Ramsey Clark (Preface)

Hardcover - 256 pages
1st US edition (June 1999)
St. Martins Press (Trade)
ISBN: 0312203543

Book Description

Prison Writings, compiled by Peltier over the past few years, tells the extraordinary story of his life -- his impoverished upbringing in the Dakotas, his gradual development as an American Indian leader during the political upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the tense battles with the government that culminated with the "Incident at Oglala." This last event is one of the darker moments of American history, when FBI agents raided an Indian reservation on the slimmest of pretenses, setting off a firefight in which two agents were killed.

Correctly anticipating an unfair judicial process, Peltier escaped to Canada following the shootout. Using false information gained by intimidating a young Indian woman into providing untrue testimony, the FBI illegally extradited Peltier from Canada, and then withheld exonerating information at his trial. Since his conviction, a government lawyer has admitted that the prosecution had no idea of who killed the two FBI agents, yet Peltier is still locked up at Leavenworth penitentiary in Kansas.

Whether writing about his childhood, his involvement with AIM, the events at Oglala, or the infamous trial that resulted, Peltier is remarkably philosophical, and even forgiving, his voice a blanket of mercy and compassion. Looking beyond himself, he places his experience in the context of the long history of America's betrayals of and injustices to its Indian peoples. Prison Writings is thus a major political memoir, and it echoes the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and, especially, Martin Luther King, Jr.

From the Publisher:

"Listen to this fresh, brave voice, then inform yourself about the shameful case of Leonard Peltier."
--Peter Matthiessen, author of In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

"This book takes the reader on an emotional and spiritual journey as Leonard Peltier's surprisingly hopeful reflections make the terrible injustice of his imprisonment for 24 years even more difficult to accept. Peltier's important journal details his trial and conviction which was based in part on admittedly false testimony and evidence so inconclusive that reasonable people everywhere have concluded that he should be granted clemency."
-- Wilma Mankiller, former chief of the Cherokee Nation, and author of Mankiller

"Leonard Peltier's words reveal a wise man who has become freer than his captors, despite his false imprisonment for a crime he did not commit. His thoughts here remind us of our true mission as Indian people, as human beings here on this humble, beautiful planet. These thoughts cannot be captured or locked behind bars, or destroyed by gunfire. They fly free."
-- Joy Harjo, Muskokee, poet and musician, author of The Woman Who Fell From the Sky

"For too long, both Leonard's supporters and detractors have seen him as a metaphor, as a public figure worthy of political rallies and bumper stickers, but very rarely as a private man who only wants to go home. I pray this book will bring Leonard home."
--Sherman Alexie, author of Indian Killer

"A deeply moving and very disturbing story of a gross miscarriage of justice and an eloquent cri de coeur of Native Americans for redress and to be regarded as human beings with inalienable rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution, like any other citizens. We pray that it does not fall on deaf ears. America owes it to herself."
-- Desmond M. Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa, and Nobel Peace Laureate

"It would be inadequate to describe Leonard Peltier's Prison Writings as a classic of prison literature, although it is that. It is also a cry for help, an accusation against monstrous injustice, a beautiful expression of a man's soul, demanding release."
-- Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States

"If you care about justice, read this brave book. If you care about the perpetuation of the white man's justice against the Native American, you must know the Leonard Peltier story."
-- Gerry Spence, author of Give Me Liberty!

Editor's Commentary on Leonard Peltier's book

This book will shake the conscience of the Nation -- and the world. It's a flaming arrow aimed at the circled wagons of American injustice.

EDITOR'S NOTE: As I write this, just before Christmas 1998, the U.S. Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, is in a state of lockdown and I'm out of touch with author Leonard Peltier -- U.S. Prisoner #89637-132 -- just as his book is about to go into printed proofs. The Leavenworth lockdown was apparently caused by a fight that had nothing whatsoever to do with Leonard, yet he and all other inmates are being collectively punished. All personal belongings have been stripped from prisoners' cells. They've been allowed out of their locked cells only for a single ten-minute shower this past week. Just as I need him to give final approval to various details in the final edited manuscript, he's out of touch with the outside world -- no visitors, no phone calls, no contact -- period. No way of knowing for the time being how he's doing or what's been happening to him. The International Office of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee is flooding the internet with appeals for his supporters to contact the prison and the Bureau of Prisons to inquire about Leonard's health and safety.

They have already been flooded with calls, faxes and letters -- and also threatened with a lawsuit -- over the continuing denial of competent medical treatment for Leonard's jaw problems, caused by a childhood case of lockjaw and compounded by near-disastrous surgery in 1996 at the hands of prison doctors in Springfield Medical Facility. Rumors this past fall that prison officials would finally allow Leonard to be treated by doctors at the renowned Mayo Clinic have, as of this writing, proved groundless. We keep hoping.

Meanwhile, Leonard's case has become a centerpiece of Amnesty International's 1998-1999 focus on human rights abuses in the United States. President Clinton -- the one person who can free Leonard with the stroke of a pen, and has had five years to do so -- is under his own onslaught at this moment, one more victim of an overzealous and vindictive prosecutor. The European Parliament as well as the governments of Italy and Belgium have passed resolutions calling for clemency for Leonard Peltier as well as for Congressional investigations into the circumstances surrounding his case and the whole era of the 1970's "Reign of Terror" at Pine Ridge -- and government involvement in it. Many within the Canadian government are demanding that Peltier be returned to that country, from which he was fraudulently extradited by the U.S. government in 1976.

I pray that Leonard will be a free man so that we will have the privilege of hearing his own words spoken from his own lips. Although often written in pain and darkness and isolation, those words -- like the incandescent spirit of this extraordinary human being -- shine through every one these pages.

I want to thank Leonard for the high honor of being chosen to select, edit, arrange, and, on more than a few occasions, to goad the author into revealing even deeper levels of his thought and memory. I hope that this book, prepared under often trying circumstances for the past two years, will add to a renewed surge in public awareness that will not only help to free Leonard but will help to free us all from the kind of insidious injustice that has put him where he is -- and kept him there for nearly a quarter of a century. We have all, every one of us, allowed it to happen. We must all join -- yes, every one of us -- and demand that it end.

If, when you read this, U.S.P. #89637-132 remains a prisoner of injustice, then the time is NOW for you, too, to speak out and for you, too, to act. Every single one of us is needed. As Leonard has said, "We must each be an army of one." To mobilize your own voice and your own conscience, contact the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, PO Box 583, Lawrence KS 66044 (lpdc@idir.net or 785-842-5774). To write Leonard directly (which I urge you to do!), his address is: USPL Leonard Peltier #89637-132, PO Box 1000, Leavenworth KS 66048.

In the spirit of Leonard Peltier,
Harvey Arden

About the Author
Leonard Peltier, who emerged as a Native American leader in the 1960s, was arrested in 1976 in Canada and extradited. He has been in prison ever since, and is now confined at Leavenworth. This is his first book.

About the Editor
Harvey Arden is the author and coauthor of several books, including Wisdomkeepers and Travels in a Stone Canoe (both with Steve Wall) and Noble Red Man. He lives in Washington, DC.