This is Truth and Reckoning, a newsletter from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). We are organizers, lawyers, and revolutionaries who educate and agitate to confront systemic injustice and restore humanity’s relationship with the Earth. For more than 30 years, we’ve helped communities resist corporate power, reject regulatory false promises, and assert their right to self-governance grounded in ecological balance. As the Federal government celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, nationalistic propaganda based in American exceptionalism and lies about the real history of the USA are proliferating. Did you know that the Declaration of Independence argued that secession was justified on the basis that the British had “endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”? Or that the Union’s first president, George Washington, was given the name ‘Town Destroyer’ by members of the Iroquois confederacy? This conversation between Anne Keala Kelly (Kānaka Maoli (Hawaiian) / Irish), Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes descendant), CELDF’s Education Director Ben Price, and CELDF’s Community Resistance and Resilience Program Director Max Wilbert discusses the the real founding of the United States and the colonial violence that hidden behind rhetoric of “freedom” and ideas such as “all men are created equal.” We discuss: * The roots of systemic racism, colonialism, and genocide in US culture * The Doctrine of Discovery as founding myth and animating force for the ongoing colonial process * Racial and patriarchal hierarchies as pillars of US government and society * Strategies for resistance, decolonization, and spiritual renewal Here’s a clip from the discussion: About Our Speakers Anne Keala Kelly (Kānaka Maoli (Hawaiian) / Irish) is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist, writer, editor, podcaster, and activist whose work analyzes and advances Indigenous peoples’ rights, cultural, environmental, and political resistance and representation in media. Her print journalism and commentary have appeared in Indian Country Today Media Network, The Nation, Honolulu Weekly, YES! Magazine, Native Americas, Honolulu Civil Beat and other publications. And her essays can be found in cultural and academic journals, such as ʻŌiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal, and American Indian Quarterly. Her broadcast reporting has aired on Al Jazeera English, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the Pacifica Network’s Free Speech Radio News, Independent Native News, and more. Keala has produced and hosted her own podcast and Substack column (The Native Truth), was a regular contributor and occasional host on the internationally syndicated First Voices Radio show, and most recently had the honor to edit the catalog for Wasco / Yakama artist Lillian Pitt’s upcoming exhibition at The Museum At Warm Springs. Keala is the author of the short book, “Our Rights to Self-Determination: A Hawaiian Manifesto” (2022). Her documentary, “Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai’i,” has received international film festival awards, and is widely taught in courses focusing on Indigenous Peoples, colonization, Hawaiian sovereignty, and militarism. * Keala’s website * The Native Truth Substack * Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai’i * “Our Rights to Self-Determination: a Hawaiian Manifesto” Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes descendant) is a renowned scholar, educator, journalist, and author in American Indian studies. She co-authored along with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz the popular book “All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans (Beacon Press, 2016), and is Assistant Director of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center at California State University San Marcos. As the former Policy Director and Senior Research Associate at the Center for World Indigenous Studies, Dina has worked with Indigenous governments in the U.S. and beyond for many years helping them to formulate policy strategies and work cooperatively with federal and state governments and in other collaborative organizational partnerships. In her second book As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock (Beacon Press, 2019), Dina applies her expertise in environmental justice to create a foundation for thinking through what environmental justice policy means in Indian country. The only book of its kind, it stands as a primer for governments and organizations of all kinds who are engaging in environmental justice work with Indigenous peoples. Most recently, she authored “Who Gets to be Indian? Ethnic Fraud and Other Difficult Conversations about Native American Identity” (2025). Dina is regularly invited to speak on topics related to American Indians (including environmental justice) at universities, conferences, and gatherings of all sorts all over the country. * Dina’s website * “All the Real Indians Died Off, And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans” * As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock * “Who Gets to Be Indian? Ethnic Fraud, Disenrollment, and Other Difficult Conversations About Native American Identity” Ben Price is a pioneer in the Rights of Nature Movement. In 2006 he organized the first community on Earth to recognize legal rights for Nature, Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. In the decades that followed, Ben continued organizing scores of communities to enact community rights and rights of nature local legislation. In 2010, Ben was called into Pittsburgh, PA, where he organized in the City’s nine districts and lobbied their respective City Council representatives to draft and enact a ban on hydraulic fracking and that also recognized the rights of local ecosystems to exist, flourish, and evolve. The law was enacted by unanimous vote of the City Council. Ben’s book “How Wealth Rules the World: Saving Our Communities and Freedoms from the Dictatorship of Property” was published in 2019 and his novel, “OGDEN: A Tale for the End of Time” was published in 2023. Ben’s collection of essays Wouldn’t You Say? was published by CELDF in early 2025. Max Wilbert is co-director of Community Resistance and Resilience with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). He is also a community organizer, wilderness guide, and co-founder of the anti-mining group Protect Thacker Pass. He has been active in grassroots political movements for 25 years. Max is a MA candidate in Degrowth at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where his research focuses on sustainability, greenwashing, and resistance movements. He is co-author of the book Bright Green Lies: How The Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, author of an essay series titled We Choose to Speak, and writes a newsletter called Biocentric. His work has been featured in CNN, The New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian, Dark Mountain, Earth Island Journal, and elsewhere. Get full access to Truth and Reckoning at celdf.substack.com/subscribe
