Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier

June 26, 1975
Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota
Native American Activist Framed Up by FBI

Leonard Peltier is an internationally renowned class-war prisoner. Peltier’s incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its Native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier was framed up for the 1975 deaths of two FBI agents marauding in what had become a war zone on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation. The lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have repeatedly denied Peltier’s appeals while acknowledging blatant prosecutorial misconduct. On January 20, 2025, his life sentences were commuted to home confinement. He still remains in the clutches of the capitalist state, and we continue to fight for his complete freedom.

updated: 2026-06-11