Riding for remembrance, riding for change

Amelia Schafer
ICT + Rapid City Journal

NEAR STURGIS, South Dakota – A thunderous roar echoed through Bear Butte State Park early Sunday, Aug. 6, as streaks of red ribbons flew in the wind and over 100 motorcyclists took off from the park to take part in the Medicine Wheel Ride.

Lynette Kills Back, Oglala Lakota, led this year’s ride. She rode for two family members, her cousin Leatrice “Leah” Jealous of Him, whose remains were found on the railroad tracks in Rapid City in 2008, and cousin Sharyn Kills Back, who was killed in 1985 and whose killer was caught. Fifteen years later, Jealous of Him’s murder still remains unsolved.

The Medicine Wheel Ride is an annual motorcycle ride to honor and bring attention to victims of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives crisis. Riders came from all over the United States, some from as far as Hawaii and several from the Navajo Nation.

“I think everybody needs to know that there are missing and murdered Indigenous women,” Kills Back said. “I stress that because when Native people go missing there’s no publicity through the national media. I want to change that narrative and give our Indigenous people that voice.”

The ride generally takes place on the first or second day of the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Rider registration funds are used to provide financial aid to victims’ family members for whatever they need, whether it be transportation, legal fees or other costs.

Lorna Cuny, Oglala Lakota and one of the Medicine Wheel Ride founders, said originally the group was formed as an Indigenous women’s motorcycle club but as time went on, the group felt it was important to use the ride to uplift community voices and concerns.

During the nearly two-hour, 70-mile ride from Bear Butte to the Crazy Horse Memorial, Kills Back prayed. She said she prays for her Indigenous relatives whose lives have been lost and whose bodies have never been found.

“I ask Creator to help find those women and bring justice to their families. We have children growing up without mothers, grandmas, sisters and nieces or even without their male relatives,” Kills Back said.

Many of the riders remarked on the importance of bringing attention to missing and murdered Indigenous people during the Sturgis Rally, a time when hundreds of thousands of people pour into the Black Hills and sex-trafficking increases. Since 2020, authorities have arrested 23 individuals on human trafficking charges during the rally.

A 2022 report from the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Hearing stated that 40 percent of sex-trafficking victims in South Dakota are Native American women, despite Native women only making up 8 percent of the state’s population.

From July 28 to Aug. 4, several of the Medicine Wheel riders rode from Phoenix up through Wyoming into Montana and finally to the Sturgis Rally. During the ride, riders stopped in several locations to screen their documentary “We Ride For Her”: Chandler and Tuba City, Ariz.; Towaoc, Colo.; Riverton and Worland, Wyo.; Lame Deer, Mont.; and Rapid City.

In each community, family members or loved ones of a victim could write their names on a red ribbon, which was then attached to one of the motorcycles, carrying the victim’s name and memory along the route.

“I think they (the families) felt really supported, just being able to hear from others and from us,” Cuny said.

The ride itself also provided exposure for MMIP to non-Native communities. Cuny said when the group would stop to get gas they’d often have curious individuals come up and ask them what the red hands represented and for what reason they were riding.

“We Ride for Her” is an 18-minute short film that details the Medicine Wheel riders, their journey and focuses on the disappearance of Susan Fast Eagle, who was last seen in Rapid City in 2021. Several members of Fast Eagle’s family discuss her disappearance and the struggles they’ve faced ever since.

To finish out their ride, “We Ride for Her” was screened again at the Crazy Horse Memorial.

“I hope that we can impact everyone in a positive way and that maybe they can share our message and collaborate with us in some way,” Kills Back said. 

This story is co-published by the Rapid City Journal and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the South Dakota area.

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