Nathan Phillips (activist): Difference between revisions

Nathan Phillips is a Native American activist and Omaha people elder, known for his support of Native American war veterans. He leads an annual ceremony in their honor at Arlington National Cemetery.

Phillips served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.^[1][2] The New York Times identified Phillips as a former Director of the Native Youth Alliance, a group that works to ensure that traditional culture and spiritual ways are upheld for future generations of Native Americans,^[1] and that he leads an annual ceremony honoring Native American war veterans in Arlington National Cemetery.^[1] The Guardian called him "a well-known Native American activist who was among those leading the Standing Rock protests in 2016 and 2017 against the construction of an oil pipeline in North Dakota".^[3]

Phillips was in the news in Michigan in 2015 when a group of students from Eastern Michigan University allegedly harassed him.^[4] He received national attention in America after participating in the Indigenous Peoples' March in Washington, D.C. in January 2019, when he was harassed by a group of high school students.^[5][6][7][1] According to Slate magazine, Phillips explained to Detroit Free Press that the incident began when he attempted to "defuse an escalating argument" between the young people, whose numbers were increasing, and four members of the Black Hebrew Israelites who were "saying some harsh things" against the youth.^[8][9] In an interview with the Washington Post, Phiilips said he needed to find an "exit out of this situation and finish my song at the Lincoln Memorial. I started going that way, and that guy in the hat stood in my way, and we were at an impasse. He just blocked my way and wouldn’t allow me to retreat."^[10][9] According to an article in the The Cincinnati Enquirer, as more videos of the incident were uploaded and analyzed on January 20, different narratives surrounding the chronology of events have been suggested.^[11][12][13]

In a January 2019 article in Indian Country Today', Phillips was described as a "keeper of a sacred pipe".^{[14][Notes 1][4]} Another January 2019 article in the Washington Post described Phillips as a "a veteran in the indigenous rights movement".^[10]

Phillips is the subject of the award-winning 2013 documentary film Between Earth and Sky in which he and his wife Shoshana, travel back to his Omaha reservation after his wife was diagnosed with bone-marrow cancer (which she died of in 2014).^{[15][16][17][18]}

In 2012, Phillips and his son appeared in the music video for "Make It Bun Dem", a song by Skrillex and Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley.^[19] In a 20 February 2017 interview that took place during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests (DAPL), Phillips explained he had answered the casting call at the time because he wanted to help his children cope with his wife's cancer.^[20]

On January 18, 2019 videos recorded at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, USA showed Nathan Phillips being harassed by a group of fifty to sixty high school boys who had attended the coinciding annual March for Life; it was widely shared through social media, including Twitter and YouTube with one video reaching two million viewers in two hours.^[21][22][5] The young men were allegedly from a private, all-male, Park Hills, Kentucky-based Covington Catholic High School (CovCath), who had traveled from Kentucky on a school trip to attend the anti-abortion March for Life.^{[Notes 2]} On the same day, the video created a "backlash" against the school and the students. Shortly after the video went viral, CovCath's communications director released a statement regretting that the incident took place.^[22] On January 19th, 2019, multiple students that were present at the incident stated that it had been skewed. The students stated that Nathan Philips tried to provoke them and that they never chanted "build the wall" or used any racist language or gestures. Videos have been released that confirm these statements. ^[23][24][25]

Hours after the incident took place, in a brief interview on Twitter, Phillips said, "While I was there singing, I heard them saying ‘Build that wall! Build that wall!’, you know... this is indigenous land! ...We're not supposed to have walls here, we never did—for millennium. Before anybody else came here we never had walls. We never had a prison. We always took care of our elders, we took care of our children. We always provided for them, you know. We taught them right from wrong. I wish I could see that energy of the young mass, the young men, put their energy into making this into a really great country."^[26]

According to Indian Country Today, the drum song elder Phillips chanted was the AIM Song, a traditional Native American inter-tribal powwow song.^[14]

In response to the incident, House Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico wrote, "The students’ display of blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance is a signal of how common decency has decayed under this administration. Heartbreaking."^[21] and this "Veteran put his life on the line for our country."^[27]

• Between Earth and Sky (2012) at IMDb