Yesterday, we posted a side note to a story out of South Dakota's west river, Rapid City hotel vowing to ban Native Americans offered cheap rates at 2021 Sheriff Mack event.
The main story is moving fast--and the reaction to the hotel's discrimination is vigorous, if not furious.
At the Rapid City Journal, Siandhart Bonnet reported in Federal lawsuit filed against hotel following racist comments as hundreds march for change:
A quiet Ninth Street and a table with the banner “Systemic racism is still the problem” awaited hundreds of people marching against racism Wednesday afternoon.
Cries for the end of racism, for businesses to join the march, and the end of racial profiling carried through a blocked off Main Street as people made their way from Memorial Park to the Andrew Bogue Federal Building in Rapid City.
It was there that Nick Tilsen, NDN Collective President and CEO, announced the federal civil rights class action lawsuit against the Retsel Corporation, parent company of the Grand Gateway Hotel, has been filed for denying services to Native Americans.
“We’re going to hold them accountable,” he said.
The march and lawsuit comes four days after a shooting early Saturday morning at the Grand Gateway Hotel on North Lacrosse Street that left a man with serious injuries. Connie Uhre, who was listed as president of the Retsel Corporation located at the same address as the hotel as late as November 2021 in an annual report to the Secretary of State’s office, posted comments on Facebook saying she would “not allow a Native American to enter our business including Cheers (sports bar)” because she can’t tell “who is a bad Native or a good Native.” The comments have since been deleted.
Tilsen said NDN Collective sent Sunny Red Bear, racial equity campaign director for the collective, to the hotel to book a room and she was denied. They then sent director of operations Alberta Eagle to book rooms on behalf of the organization. He said Eagle was denied and removed from the lobby.
“The act of doing that, in the act of both violating Sunny Red Bear’s rights and the rights of NDN Collective, they violated the law,” Tilsen said.
Red Bear said before the press conference that the federal lawsuit has been building up for a while. She said the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed because people were being discriminated against. Now in 2022, it’s Native Americans being denied a hotel room.
“This is a civil rights violation,” she said. “We won’t allow that to happen in the community or anywhere else for that matter.” . . .
Tilsen said NDN Collective will be represented by former United States Attorney Brendan Johnson.
Johnson said the complaint was filed as a class action on behalf of the Native American community who have been discriminated against.
“We, to be clear, don’t file the complaint to send a message,” he said. “We file a complaint because we want justice. For those who would take us lightly, I remind you in the last year we sued Indian Health Services and the federal government and said there is a treaty right to health care (secured by) Native American signatories of the Fort Laramie Treaty, and we have won.”
Johnson said this will be a long process, but there will be justice.
Oglala Sioux Tribe President Kevin Killer, who marched from the Band Shell to the courthouse with the group, said he and the tribe’s council are committed to protecting people’s rights and making sure that people are heard.
Chairman Peter Lengkeek of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe said perhaps it’s time for Native Americans to take their money elsewhere.
“Maybe if this is going to continue, we go somewhere else,” he said. “Maybe things will change and that’s something we’re praying for, that’s what we’re hoping for.”
He said it’s actions like that taken by the Grand Gateway Hotel that create an environment conducive to violence. . . .
Read the lawsuit here.
At Indian Country Today, Chris Aadland reported in Lawsuit filed against hotel wanting to ban Native people:
A social media post from an owner of a South Dakota hotel attempting to ban Native Americans from the property following a weekend shooting drew quick condemnation from tribal leaders, advocates and the city's mayor – and a lawsuit.
Connie Uhre, one of the owners of the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City, said in a Facebook post Sunday that she cannot "allow a Native American to enter our business including Cheers,” which is the establishment's bar and casino.
Additionally, South Dakota Public Broadcasting obtained an email written by Connie Uhre as part of an email chain between area hospitality managers saying, "I really do not want to allow Natives on property … The problem is we do not know the nice ones from the bad Natives ... so we just have to say no to them!!" According to SDPB, several of the hospitality managers included in the chain responded with criticism to Uhre’s statement, calling it “disgusting” and racist.
That followed a shooting at the hotel early Saturday involving two teenagers. Rapid City police spokesman Brendyn Medina said both the victim and the shooting suspect are Native.
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Harold Frazier condemned Uhre's post, calling it racist and discriminatory, and demanded an apology.
“It is foolish to attack a race of people and not all of the issues affecting the society in which we live. This includes racism," Frazier said in a statement. ”The members of the Great Sioux Nation who visit our sacred Black Hills are often subject to this kind of behavior. Those members that choose to live on our treaty territory are often treated as a problem, no matter how we choose to live."
Messages left at the hotel for Uhre and her son Nick Uhre, a manager, were not immediately returned.
Mayor Steve Allender posted a screenshot of Connie Uhre’s comment and said Monday on Twitter that neither the shooting nor the hotel’s response reflects the city’s values.
“I just felt that I couldn’t be silent and pretend like this is just a harmless venting out of frustration,” he said. “This is an attack on not only the 12% of Rapid Citians who are Native American, but also the larger Native American population nationwide..” . . .
Read the rest at Indian Country Today.
On Thursday, SDPB's Victoria Wick reported in Rapid City hotel sued for discrimination:
An Indigenous rights group has filed a federal lawsuit against owners of a Rapid City hotel and lounge for discrimination.
The civil suit was filed on Wednesday, March 23, by NDN Collective of Rapid City and two named individuals who were turned away when they tried to check into the hotel.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a Saturday night shooting at the hotel and racist public statements made afterward by the hotel’s owner. This report for SDPB relies on contents of the civil complaint.
The Grand Gateway Hotel and Cheers Lounge has been the subject of national attention since March 20, when its owner, Connie Uhre, declared on Facebook that the business would no longer allow access to Native people.
Connie Uhre made her inflammatory statements in the days following a March 19 shooting at the hotel. Quincy Bear Robe, 19, was arrested and charged with assaulting Myron Pourier Jr., who was hospitalized with serious injuries. Both men involved are Native.
Two days after Connie Uhre announced the hotel’s new policy on access, two Native women went to the Grand Gateway Hotel and asked to rent a room, according to the civil complaint.
An employee refused, saying the hotel had a policy of not renting rooms to people with “local” identification. The employee also refused to rent a room to the other woman whose identification was not local.
Connie Uhre’s son Nicholas manages the operation. Nicholas Uhre publicly disavowed his mother’s statements, but a few days later refused service to a group of Native people, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court.
On March 22, representatives of NDN Collective attempted to rent five rooms at the Grand Gateway and were turned away, first by a desk clerk and then by the manager, believed by the group to be Nicholas Uhre. The complaint describes the manager as forceful and threatening.
NDN Collective is represented by Sioux Falls lawyers Brendan Johnson and Timothy Billion, who are asking the court to certify the matter as a class action.
Unity March pic.twitter.com/LGtaEA1LJD
— Richard Two Bulls (@TwoBullsSDPB) March 23, 2022
The YouTube from the SDPB story:
Indian Country Today posted a press release, NDN Collective responds to Rapid City hotel threat to ban all Native Americans with civil rights lawsuit:
Yesterday, in response to a charged statement on social media from a Rapid City hotel and business owner who threatened to ban all Native Americans from the Grand Gateway Hotel and Cheers Lounge, NDN Collective announced they will be filing a federal civil rights class action lawsuit on Wednesday, March 23, against the Grand Gateway Hotel for its racist and discriminatory treatment of Native people.
NDN Collective will be hosting a rally and march today, organized in partnership with the American Indian Movement and Cheyenne River Grassroots Collective. The groups will meet at the Memorial Park Bandshell at 2:00 pm on Wednesday, March 23, and march to the federal court house. The details of the NDN Collective class action lawsuit will be shared at a press conference and rally in front of the federal building in Rapid City at 3:00 pm.
The rally and march will be livestreamed on NDN Collective’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.
NDN Collective released the following statements, laying out civil rights violations and a long history of systemic racism in Rapid City and South Dakota:
“It’s heartbreaking and painful to take blows like this on a daily basis. This isn’t an Indian problem, this is a white supremacy problem and it shows up in businesses like the Grand Gateway Hotel, and in city council, too. Those who abuse their power are the decision makers who keep real education out of our schools, much-needed resources from our communities, Native children from their families, and our people in prison. Despite this mistreatment, Native people remain resilient. But our success in standing up to systemic racism is based on the support we give one another. I urge you to stand with Native communities. Together, our voices will mean victory against the racism that keeps us divided.”
– Sunny Red Bear, NDN Collective Racial Equity Campaign Director
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