More from @MoundLore
Oct 20
When the Missouri River was dammed, the water didn’t rush…it crept.
By 1962, it had swallowed whole Lakota and Mandan worlds.
Homes. Graves. Schools. Churches. All gone beneath a reservoir called Lake Oahe.
They said it would bring light and power. It brought silence.
Lake Oahe came from the Pick–Sloan Plan…a postwar promise to “tame” the Missouri.
Six great dams. Billions in federal money. Flood control. Irrigation. Hydropower.
But under that progress lay the fine print: Over 200,000 acres of tribal land flooded.
No consent. No repair. No return.
Oahe drowned 26 Native communities across Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, and Crow Creek.
Families watched from the bluffs as the water took their homes.
Cemeteries. Gardens. Sacr…
More from @MoundLore
Oct 20
When the Missouri River was dammed, the water didn’t rush…it crept.
By 1962, it had swallowed whole Lakota and Mandan worlds.
Homes. Graves. Schools. Churches. All gone beneath a reservoir called Lake Oahe.
They said it would bring light and power. It brought silence.
Lake Oahe came from the Pick–Sloan Plan…a postwar promise to “tame” the Missouri.
Six great dams. Billions in federal money. Flood control. Irrigation. Hydropower.
But under that progress lay the fine print: Over 200,000 acres of tribal land flooded.
No consent. No repair. No return.
Oahe drowned 26 Native communities across Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, and Crow Creek.
Families watched from the bluffs as the water took their homes.
Cemeteries. Gardens. Sacred trees.
One elder called it “the second Trail of Tears….but slower.” The river rose inch by inch until the past disappeared.
Read 7 tweets
Oct 12
“They handed the keys of the White House and abandoned Black America.”
In 1877, the U.S. elite made a secret deal. What followed was a century of suffering.
This is the story of the Compromise of 1877…..but also, a warning from history. 🧵👇
The Civil War was over, but peace wasn’t.
The South was burning with resentment. The North was tired of fighting. And Black Americans were building real power for the first time.
Then came the election of 1876….the dirtiest in U.S. history.
Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes claimed fraud.
20 electoral votes were disputed…enough to swing the presidency.
Armed militias gathered. Rumors of a second civil war spread. The Union was about to crack again.
Read 9 tweets
Oct 3
For millions of Americans, Israel isn’t politics. It’s prophecy.
Foreign policy became scripture, and U.S. wars turned into sermons with bombs for punctuation.
Part 5 of a 10 part 🧵 saga
The roots run deep. Puritans once called themselves a “New Israel.”
By the 19th century, Christian Zionists preached that “Jews returning to Palestine was not strategy but divine destiny.”
By the 1970s, prophecy had a pulpit.
Televangelists like Jerry Falwell filled stadiums with fire.
Falwell declared Israel’s founding in 1948 fulfilled biblical promise and that defending it was the work of God himself.
Read 8 tweets
Oct 2
The biggest open secret in U.S. foreign policy:
Israel has nuclear weapons. And for 50+ years, America’s role has been to lie about it.
Every president since Nixon has honored the silence.
Not oversight. Not denial. Silence.
Part 4 of a 10 part 🧵 saga
It began in the 1960s at Dimona, in the Negev desert.
On paper? A “textile plant.”
In reality? A secret reactor, built with French engineers, hidden even from Washington at first.
By 1969, the lie collapsed.
Golda Meir met Richard Nixon in the Oval Office.
The deal was struck: – Israel would never admit or test a weapon. – America would never expose it.
That handshake still shapes policy today.
Read 7 tweets
Oct 1
In 1948, Truman recognized Israel in just 11 minutes.
But America’s embrace wasn’t instant. For two decades, the bond was hesitant, improvised….shaped more by faith and myth than hard alliance.
Only in 1967 did the U.S. truly choose its side.
A 10 part 🧵 saga
The roots ran deep in America’s imagination. Puritans preached they were a “New Israel” They read the Book of Joshua as their map: conquest, wilderness, promised land.
By the 1800s, Protestant missionaries were sailing to Palestine, planting schools and churches from Jerusalem to Jaffa.
Their reports filtered home….letters describing the “Holy Land” in ruin, waiting to be redeemed.
This seeded Christian Zionism in America long before Israel was born.
For many, supporting a Jewish homeland wasn’t foreign policy…it was prophecy.
Then came the Holocaust. Millions murdered.
The survivors…displaced, stateless, many trapped in camps across Europe years after the war ended.
When the UN voted to partition Palestine in 1947, the U.S. hesitated…torn between oil, Arab alliances, and the urgency of Jewish refuge.
Read 19 tweets
Oct 1
1933 America was on its knees
Dust storms swallowed towns, breadlines stretched for blocks, and millions of young men had no work.
Roosevelt launched the boldest social experiment in U.S. history:
The Civilian Conservation Corps A gamble to rebuild men by rebuilding the land🧵
Enrollees were 18–25, broke, and hungry.
The CCC gave them uniforms, boots, 3 meals a day….and $30 a month.
$25 went straight home. Families survived on that money.
“We can take it!” Their motto and they proved it.
What did they accomplish?
• 3 billion trees planted • 125,000 miles of trails & roads • 800 new parks & rec areas • Millions of workdays fighting floods & fire
From Yellowstone to Shenandoah, Pokagon to Turkey Run….their fingerprints remain.
Read 7 tweets