Red Thunder Oral History Project

Official Red Thunder Oral History Project website: redthunderoralhistoryproject.org

Project Mission

The purpose of the Red Thunder Oral History Project is to collect and record the history of Red Thunder and the group’s successful battle to end cyanide heap leach mining in an effort to protect sacred places in the Little Rocky Mountains for the purposes of student and public education.

The origins, actions, and outcomes of Red Thunder’s efforts

The project’s focus is on developing a detailed account of the origins, actions, and outcomes of Red Thunder’s efforts during the 1990s within the historical context of mining and land loss at Ft. Belknap. The goal is to document a model of grassroots activism in response to environmental injustice in the context of a contemporary indigenous tribal community and to enter this sequence of events into the historical narratives of US environmental history, Native American studies, and Montana history. Research activity centers on recorded interviews—transcribed for subsequent archiving and analysis—with as many knowledgeable or informed individuals as we could identify and recruit for participation, all framed by and interpreted within existing documentary records pertaining to mining in the Little Rocky Mountains.

A living archive: photos, videos, primary sources, maps, and perspective

The completion of the Red Thunder teaching website offers site visitors a plethora of primary and secondary resources, photo and video archives, and a blog that includes perspectives from activists and academics involved in Red Thunder, Inc.