Could Portland Lead the Way for Cities Nationwide to Divest From the Dakota Pipeline and Private Prisons?

Protesters with Lifted Voices and The American Indian Center rally in solidarity with the Water Protectors at Standing Rock outside a CitiBank in Chicago, Illinois, during a national day of action last week. Activists across the country are closing accounts with banks financing the Dakota Access Pipeline and urging state and local governments to do the same.Protesters with Lifted Voices and The American Indian Center rally in solidarity with the Water Protectors at Standing Rock outside a CitiBank in Chicago, Illinois, during a national day of action last week. Activists across the country are closing accounts with banks financing the Dakota Access Pipeline and urging state and local governments to do the same. (Photo: Kelly Hayes / Lifted Voices)

Not long after returning home from the Dakota Access pipeline protests at Standing Rock, Oregon resident Ali Pullen was testifying before the Portland City Council in an effort to dump several large corporations from the city’s list of contractors and investment interests.

Pullen, who had traveled to Standing Rock with a delegation of people of color from Portland, specifically testified about Caterpillar, a major construction contractor for Dakota Access, and Wells Fargo, one of 17 banks financing a pipeline that activists are now risking life and limb to stop.

“When investment decisions affect the drinking water of 17 million people, [the pipeline] will not only affect these vulnerable Native tribes, it will impact our local community,” Pullen said at the hearing on Thursday.

Divestment is not a new strategy; opponents of mountain top removal mining and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, for example, have targeted banks and contractors for years. Now the tactic of putting financial pressure on investors and profiteers is finding new life in the movement centered in Standing Rock, especially as activists who can’t make it to North Dakota look for ways to support the Water Protectors camped out there.    

Thursday marked a national day of action in solidarity with Standing Rock, and protesters gathered outside the hearing in Portland and in many other cities to protest Wells Fargo, Chase and other banks that are tied to the pipeline. Across the country, people are answering the call to #DefundDAPL by closing their accounts with banks that support the pipeline. Activists in…

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