SAGE Council Highlighted!

From the New Mexico Independent about our sister organization! Go SAGE COUNCIL!

In the photo is Bineshi Albert one of our SWOP board members.

Last year, a SAGE Council delegation prepares for a U.S. Social Forum march. (Photo by sarahruthvg/Flickr)

By Rebecca Ford 07/10/2008

ALBUQUERQUE -- Native American voters, often treated as an afterthought in presidential elections, are receiving an unprecedented amount of attention from both presidential candidates this year in the battleground state of New Mexico.

It's a development nearly two decades in the making in which a handful of Albuquerque–based activists have been working to create a well-organized and powerful Native American voice.

Today, with 63,000 registered voters, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, Native Americans may well be the swing constituency in one of the most politically volatile states in the country.

The Sacred Alliance for Grassroots Equality (SAGE) Council, founded in 1996 by brother and sister Sonny and Laurie Weahkee, was formed to protest the construction of a road through the Petroglyph National Monument on Albuquerque's fast-growing westside. The city planned to build the road through the site, considered sacred to all of the state's pueblos, in order to ease traffic congestion for many commuters.

“A lot of people don’t realize that there’s not really a separation between the earth and the way we practice our cultures and our traditions,” said Sonny Weahkee. The petroglyphs, some of which are over 3,000 years old according to park officials, are still used for religious ceremonies by some tribes today.

The Weahkees and their fellow activists did everything they could to stop the road from being built: collected signed petitions, spoke out at council meetings, and tried to block funding for the construction. Sonny and Laurie were even arrested, along with five other SAGE Council members, when they tried to physically stand in the way of the construction of the road.

“At that time, we started to realize that the City of Albuquerque wasn’t going to move, no matter how many people we packed into the city council office,” said Sonny Weahkee, a Cochiti and Zuni Pueblo member. “They were never ever going to vote on our side.”

Read the rest of the article here NMI