Billings Black Snake Protest

Billings protesters gathered at the Wells Fargo Bank Building Thursday in support of those defiantly Standing up at Standing Rock North Dakota.  More than 50 people gathered in downtown Billings on Thursday afternoon to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline and march through the downtown Wells Fargo & Co. bank building in an attempt to pressure the bank to withdraw funding from the project.  Before the protest, participants circled on the Yellowstone County Courthouse lawn for a sacred pipe blessing, smudging ceremony and prayer.
Don Medicine Horse is a registered member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and at one point lived less than 10 miles from the protest camps.  Medicine Horse said he came out Thursday to support his family both in Billings and at Standing Rock and to protest the black snake, which for some has come to symbolize the proposed pipeline which would transport oil from North Dakota to Illinois.