Democracy Now!
Julian Brave NoiseCat on His Memoir, Indigenous Peoples' Day and Hegseth's Wounded Knee Decision
29m
In this powerful Part 2 interview from Democracy Now!, award-winning writer, journalist, and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat discusses his debut memoir, We Survived the Night—a profound work that interweaves his family's survival stories with Indigenous oral histories, legends, and on-the-ground reporting that exposes the resilience of Indigenous peoples in the face of centuries of colonial genocide.
Speaking on Indigenous Peoples' Day, NoiseCat reflects on the critical importance of having "our legacy, our history recognized on our land" and responds to Defense Secretary Hegseth's controversial decision to allow 20 Medal of Honor recipients from the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre to keep their awards. "This is a really tragic moment in United States history," NoiseCat says. "I think that everybody would recognize that killing 300 men, women, and children is not something to be celebrated."
This essential conversation centers Indigenous voices and confronts the ongoing legacy of colonial violence—exactly the kind of storytelling that matters.
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