May 5 is a national day of remembrance for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.
Four out of five Native women experience violence in their lifetimes. The murder rate for Native women is 10 times the national average.
On the grounds of the Journey Museum, mothers and grandmothers and sisters have stretched white clothesline around the trunks of cottonwood trees. Dozens of red dresses are tied firmly to the clothesline. They whip about in the strong breeze, wrap around one another, and loosen again.
Each red dress represents a Native woman, girl, or Two-Spirit person who is either missing or who was murdered in South Dakota.
Strips of paper pinned to dresses have messages. Many of those messages are written by children: “No More Stolen Sisters.” “We miss you.” “You will always be loved.”
Other dresses have rectangles of fraying muslin pinned to their fabric. The rectangles bear names: Autum Ring. Evie Maxey. Serena Ann Spider.
Verine Black Elk is a member of the Red Ribbon Skirt Society. That’s the nonprofit whose members installed the dresses. She says the display is a reminder that the rates of violence against Native women must be addressed.
“I lost my daughter in 2023," Black Elk says. "It was a hard time. Especially yesterday. Yesterday was her two-year anniversary of her death. Doing this kind of helps me, reminds me, my daughter wouldn’t want me to wallow in my sorrow.”
Black Elk says her daughter loved her five children, the rain and visits to Pactola Lake.
“My daughter, her name was Serena Ann Spider," Black Elk says. "She was 26 years old when she was taken from me. We’re still going through the grieving process. There’s no time limit on that.
"She was a character. When she walked into a room, she lit everything up. If you were feeling sad, she would sit beside you and say, ‘What’re we sad about?’ Smile now, cry later, that was her thing.”
The Red Ribbon Skirt Society is holding a candlelight vigil and a red dress round dance at the Journey Museum in Rapid City from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
