Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance

Summary

The Native American activist recounts his evolution into a political organizer, his trial and conviction for murder, and his spiritual journey in prison.

In September of 2022, twenty-five years after Leonard Peltier received a life sentence for the murder of two FBI agents, the Democratic National Committee unanimously passed a resolution urging President Joe Biden to release him. Peltier has affirmed his innocence ever since his sentencing in 1977—his case was made fully and famously in Peter Matthiessen’s bestseller In the Spirit of Crazy Horse—and many remain convinced he was wrongly convicted.

A wise and unsettling book, Prison Writings is both memoir and manifesto, chronicling Peltier’s life in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. Invoking the Sun Dance, in which pain leads one to a transcendent reality, Peltier explores his suffering and the insights it has borne him. He also locates his experience within the history of the American Indian peoples and their struggles to overcome the federal government’s injustices.

Edited by Harvey Arden, with an introduction by Chief Arvol Looking Horse, and a preface by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Includes a PDF of additional resources