The Battle for Whiteclay

The Battle for Whiteclay is a documentary film released in 2008 which chronicles the efforts of Native American activists Frank LaMere (Winnebago), Duane Martin Sr., and Russell Means to end the sale of alcohol in Whiteclay, Nebraska. Directed and produced by Mark Vasina, the film covers the economy of the approximately one dozen residents and four liquor stores, which sell nearly 5 million cans of beer annually (12,500 cans a day). The largest populated place nearby is the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation across the border in South Dakota; its residents are largely members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Except for a brief interval, the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) has banned the sale and consumption of alcohol on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation since 1832. A high proportion of residents buy it in Whiteclay and consume it illegally. They suffer from high rates of alcoholism, diabetes and related health and social problems.

Vasina is a documentary filmmaker living in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the former president of the non-profit group Nebraskans For Peace.

Whiteclay has been active as a Nebraska border post selling alcohol to Oglala Sioux at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation since the buffer zone was removed in 1904 by executive order of President Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1999, after the murders of two young Lakota men at Whiteclay, Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) and supporting groups, such as Nebraskans for Peace, protested publicly for the state to do something about controlling or shutting down beer sales in the town. They also asked for the county to provide increased law enforcement in the hamlet, which is 22 miles from the seat of rural Sheridan County, Nebraska. The county sheriff had limited resources to patrol the town. Duane Martin, Sr. and others of the Strong Heart Society of the Oglala Sioux had a blockade within reservation boundaries of the road to Whiteclay in protest.

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