Indigenous leaders hold memorial for Renee Macklin Good
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Indigenous civic and spiritual leaders held a public memorial for Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis on Saturday, exactly one month after a federal agent shot and killed her.
The event was titled “Wokiksuye” — a Dakota and Lakota word meaning “to remember” or “to call someone back into presence,” according to an event handout.
Gaby Strong, vice president of the NDN Collective, said her grandmothers were the first witnesses and survivors of state violence.
“This is a generational burden that we carry, and we're seeing that burden again today,” she said, adding that Good was “the example of what it means to be a good relative, to be a good neighbor, to stand up for people beside you.”
An organizer estimates over 5,000 people attended the memorial at Powderhorn Park. Good’s family was also present.
In introductory remarks, Nick Tilsen, a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation, said organizers wanted Good’s family and the public to grieve together with the medicine of ceremony.
“Us grieving in a public way and doing this from our hearts is, in fact, an act of resistance itself,” said Tilsen.
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