DENNIS BANKS

In 1967 the last Unity Caravan was held.

Since the beginning, Native Peoples lived a life of being in harmony with all that surrounds us.

Every man should see the birth of his children.

I'm on this road for the rest of my life.

It is an understanding with the Great Spirit or Creator that we will follow these ways.

When you have a spiritual foundation, you look at poverty differently then.

And Americans realized that native people are still here, that they have a moral standing, a legal standing.

When we arrived in Japan in 1988, we were not prepared for the overwhelming support shown to us.

To be selected was an honor, and in respect of the family member chosen to run, families held feasts and gave away prized beaver coats, quilled tobacco bags and buffalo hides.

Even the people who come our way look upon us in amazement, that we run only for the healing of Mother Earth.

The Canadian run can be no different, at least in terms of actual running.

It also called upon traditional people in the Four Directions to strengthen the healing ceremonies and asked people to heed the warnings of Mother Earth.

I have a Father's Day every day.

Most importantly, the meaning of spirituality lays the seeds for our destiny and the path we must follow.

In 1990 we ran across Europe through 13 countries and covering 7,130 miles.

The Sun, Moon and Stars are there to guide us.

Many young Japanese were hearing for the first time the words of Native people from the West.

In 1978, the tradition of running from village to village with a message was revived. that first run was from Davis to Los Angeles, a distance of 500 miles.

An awareness reached across America that if Native American people had to resort to arms at Wounded Knee, there must really be something wrong.

That's what I'm doing. I'm trying to follow what I want to do as my dream. How do I become independent from everybody else?

It feels like now I - you know, I'm almost 80 years old - I can sit back and retire, you know, and say, 'Look, our young people are taking over.' And that's great. That's what I'd like to see.

I was taken to a boarding school when I was four years old and taken away from my mother and my father, my grandparents, who I stayed with most of the time, and just abruptly taken away and then put into the boarding school, 300 miles away from our home.

I ran away. I kept running away. Almost once a week, I'd run away from those schools. They'd catch me. They'd bring me back to the school, beat me. And it was - it was terrible.

If we follow the white man, we're going to drown with the white man.

It was like a complicit - there was complicity between the churches and the state in taking care of the 'Indian problem,' solving the 'Indian problem,' and trying to change who we were.