Kevin Abourezk
ICT
Even the doors of a maximum security prison could no longer hold Leonard Peltier.
On Feb. 18, 2025, nearly a month after former President Joe Biden pardoned Peltier, Nick Tilsen, founder and chief executive officer of NDN Collective, and Holly Cook Macarro, the collective’s former federal lobbyist, stood outside the Coleman Federal Corrections Complex in Florida.
They had hoped to meet Peltier inside the prison’s maximum security wing but were told they had to wait outside for the Turtle Mountain Chippewa activist. As they stood in the parking lot, two prison staff members walked out and then turned and began examining the prison’s main doors.
“It’s like it’s broken open or something,” Tilsen heard one of the guards say.
Intrigued, Tilsen walked up to the men to ask them what was wrong. They told him the prison’s main doors appeared to have been broken – the first time either of them could remember that happening.
Tilsen said to them: “What do you think the chances are that, you know, on the day that Leonard Peltier is getting out the door of Coleman, the maximum security prison is broken open?”
To which one of the guards replied in a deep southern accent: “It’s Creator, God.’”
That was Day 1. Today is Day 366 of Peltier’s release from prison.
So what has the past year been like for the 81-year-old who spent 49 years and two months behind bars?
In an interview with ICT this week, Peltier said life has been pretty good since being released following former President Biden’s decision to grant him clemency as he was leaving office on Jan. 20, 2025.
Peltier, who suffered from diabetes, vision loss, heart problems, an aortic aneurysm and the lingering effects of COVID-19 while in prison, said he has seen his health improve steadily as he has received quality medical care and enjoyed nutritious food. But he still struggles with poor vision following years of medical neglect, a particularly tragic deficiency for a man who spent decades painting in prison.
The past year has seen Peltier traveling to events in Minneapolis and South Dakota and entertaining celebrities and Native dignitaries, as well as Indigenous people and others who advocated for his release.
This past September, several musicians, including Native rocker Keith Secola, John Densmore, drummer for The Doors, and Native guitarist and flutist Aaron White, performed a private acoustic concert on Peltier’s front lawn.
“It was a great honor to have them come down and visit me and play some music,” Peltier said.
Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, also has spoken to Peltier several times and even donated a signed Fender guitar to sell in order to raise funds for Peltier’s living expenses. Peltier even corresponded with Robert Redford prior to the actor’s death on Sept. 16, 2025, Cook Macarro said.
And he said other musicians have asked to visit him.
“Neil Young wants to come down,” he said. “A few other big name musicians want to come down and say hello. I want to be able to thank them too for all their years. Some of these people have been supporting me for over 40-some years.”
Journalists from Harper’s Bazarre, the New York Times, the Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune have made the long trek to Turtle Mountain on the Canadian border to talk to Peltier and tell his story.
In January, Cook Macarro and former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, visited Peltier.
“She played such a key role in making sure that he was granted clemency,” Cook Macarro said of Haaland.
Going home
After leaving Coleman prison, Tilsen and Cook Macarro drove Peltier to a safe house. On the way there, Peltier sat in the back seat of the rented SUV pumping his fist and swaying to Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.”
At the safe house, Tilsen and others prayed with Peltier and smudged him off before loading him onto an airplane bound for his home in North Dakota.
When they left Florida, it had been nearly 80 degrees, but it was nearly 20 degrees below zero when the plane landed in Spirit Lake, North Dakota, that day. Nevertheless, hundreds of people lined the road leading onto the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation and the next night gathered at a casino in Belcourt for a welcome home ceremony.
That next evening in the casino event center before hundreds of supporters, journalists and tribal leaders, Peltier walked into the room and held his fist high in the air, as women trilled and men war-whooped.
“I don’t think he realized how big of an icon he was,” Tilsen said.
According to the terms of his clemency, Peltier is unable to travel beyond 100 miles of his home in Belcourt without approval from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
“I’m not totally out of prison yet,” he said. “Basically, I’m still under confinement.”
While he’s been able to leave a few times for medical treatments, he’s only been granted three furloughs to travel beyond 100 miles of his home over the past year, he said.
He was able to attend and participate in a sundance ceremony in June 2025 on the Pine Ridge Reservation – the first time he returned there since he was imprisoned. During the ceremony, dancers took Peltier to the tree in the center of the sacred circle and prayed with him.
Then in October 2025, he was allowed to travel to Rapid City, South Dakota, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day to take part in a march honoring survivors and children who died at federal boarding schools. Peltier – a boarding school survivor himself – joined more than 270 people in the march, though he was unable to walk the entire way.
Addressing the crowd, Peltier promised to remain a voice for Indigenous people.
“I love my people. I think we’re the greatest nation in the world,” he said. “I’m going to stay a fighter for you until I die.”
Then in November 2025, he traveled to Minneapolis, the birthplace of the American Indian Movement. While there, he attended a screening at the Minneapolis American Indian Center of the documentary, “Free Leonard Peltier,” which charts his long fight for freedom and eventual release. He also visited the Red Lake Nation’s Minneapolis office.
Many who got to see and meet him were overcome with emotions, Cook Macarro said.
“Leonard has been such a symbol of Indigenous resistance for so many decades and for generations of Native people, just seeing him free brought so many to tears,” she said.
Since then, however, federal prison officials have chosen to deny most other furlough requests by Peltier. Recently, they approved his request to visit his oldest daughter Lisa Peltier just before her death on Feb. 11 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, but by the time his request was approved, his daughter had died.
“I went to say goodbye to her body. That’s the best I got,” he said.
Peltier said he believes the Bureau of Prisons’s decision to deny any further furlough requests is likely the result of seeing the number of people who gather to see him when he travels beyond his reservation.
“I don’t think they expected to see that many people supporting me and surrounding me,” he said.
Tilsen said he believes former and current FBI officials have demanded that Peltier no longer be allowed to travel.
Peltier said he has been invited and would like to visit the Vatican in Italy. He had hoped to travel there in June but hasn’t heard yet whether his furlough request will be approved. He said he wants to pay his respects to the late Pope Francis, who advocated for his release prior to his death in April 2025, as well as other popes who supported his release.
“They put a lot of pressure over the years to try to get me out of prison,” Peltier said.
While there, he also plans to ask Pope Leo XIV to visit him and attend a service at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Belcourt. But he also plans to demand an apology from the pope for the Catholic Church’s efforts to eradicate Indigenous people, culture and languages.
“I’m going to ask him to make an apology to all the Native nations that the church executed, murdered and committed genocide on,” he said.
Bottom line: Peltier isn’t finished yet.
“I haven’t given up. I have not retired. I have not sold out,” he said. “To me it’s treason to do something like that because we are sovereign nations.”
‘This is real’
As long as he remains close to home, Peltier can travel where he wants, though he still has to submit a weekly schedule of his plans to prison officials, Tilsen said.
He’s visited and spoken at Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt and attended a high school wrestling match. He’s attended several traditional ceremonies. He’s often visited by local tribal and spiritual leaders.
“I can’t seem to go nowhere without somebody wanting to take a picture with me,” Peltier said. “I’m very grateful to them for showing that type of welcome.”
NDN Collective, which helped secure Peltier’s release and purchased his home for him, has continued to advocate for him, ensuring he continues to get proper medical care and his other needs are met.
“NDN wants nothing in return from Leonard other than for him just to be free,” Tilsen said.
Holly Cook Macarro also has continued helping Peltier since his release, coordinating his social calendar and organizing his personal collection of documents related to his legal efforts, as well as FBI files such as the agency’s interview with Marlon Brando. The late actor was a longtime supporter of Peltier’s and even provided him with a recreational vehicle to use while he was fleeing authorities after the 1975 shootout.
“That too has been something that has been really great to watch is all of these things that are coming back to him, from his paintings to correspondence,” Cook Macarro said.
Until Biden’s last-minute action, Peltier had seen eight presidents leave office without pardoning him or commuting his sentence. His release came after decades of grassroots organizing and legal action.
Tilsen said after he walked out of prison on Feb. 18, 2025, Peltier walked up to him, hugged him and asked him, “Is this real?”
“This is real,” he told him.