Dakota Pipeline

The Dakota Access pipeline is a pipeline that is being built to transfer crude oil fro North Dakota to Illinois. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation is directly affected by the pipeline in North and South Dakota, has been opposed to it since 2014, when they learned about the plans. The pipeline is designed to go under the Missouri River, which is the primary source of drinking water for the Sioux, who argue that not only does this put their water in danger and further contribute to man-inflicted climate change, but is also in sacred burial ground. There have been protests and legal actions taken to slow and stop the construction of the pipeline. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. defends similar non-violent campaigns and protests. From his arguments in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” it is possible to imagine that, if he were alive today, Martin Luther King Jr. would have been in support of the Standing Rock pipeline protests. Martin Luther King Jr. …show more content…
Tension was always there, it is just that now it is being brought the surface for everyone to see and understand. When speaking about the need for the nonviolent campaign in Birmingham he says, “we merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with” (104). He would say that the through the protests, the Sioux tribe and those with them are doing what is necessary, as he says in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” “…Injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured” (105). However even with the issues being brought to the light and the tension forcing the issue into conversation and awareness of people all over the nation, many are still able to turn a blind eye towards the protests and what they are