Robert A. Horse's profile

MAZA-OTIPI OYATE PROFILE

NAME: Robert A. Horse
ADDRESS: Robert A. Horse #13466, P.O. Box 5911, Sioux Falls, SD, 57117-5911
TRIBAL AFFILIATION: Oglala Lakota (Sioux)

I was born when the snow blinds on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The land and the people I was born to been in the history books for showing courage in the most terrifying odds, achieved survival against all odds for future generations. Even today, the war cries of past patriot chiefs still could be heard across the land that modern day pow-wows echo today.

Maza-OTipi Oyate was created to bring awareness and a voice to the Indigenous peoples behind the walls in South Dakota. With the incarceration numbers high for Indigenous prisoners, it was only proper to share my story and struggles with the world! Although, I was raised both on and off the reservation, and both in Native and non-Native communities, I know little of life beyond my prison cell, because my story begins when I was imprisoned as a youth.

I hope you can help me spread my words far and wide! I will share a sacred word in my Lakota language that expresses so much, "Mitakuye Oyasin." (We are all related.) Regardless of our labels in life, or our status, we are all related and connected.

We cannot truly be free until we are all free!

Forever I shall remain,
[Robert A. Horse's signature]
Robert A. Horse
Oglala Lakota (Sioux)

[Photo of Robert A. Horse standing in what appears to be a back corner of a church; there is a stained glass window in the background, some reddish-brown seats facing the back left side of the photo, and a decorative wooden banister forming a corner, framing where he is standing. He is wearing light gray scrubs over a white T-shirt and white shoes, as well as a watch on his left wrist. A small pendant hangs around his neck, which appears to be a beige pouch tied closed with a red string, hanging on a braided white cord. He has long, dark, wavy hair; thick eyebrows; and a thin mustache.]