Currently held in private hands, the site of the massacre of as many as 300 members of the Lakota Sioux tribe at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota is a tragic reminder of the way we "won the west." The owner seeks to profit from the shameful history of the site and the tribe, challenged to keep its members warm and safe through killer winters and facing unemployment numbers that are off the charts, is in no position to meet the price he has put on the land.
We have named a National Park in South Dakota for George Armstrong Custer. We have allowed the site of this horrible massacre to go untended and dishonored. It is past time we do something as a nation to repair the Wounded Knee battle site and cemetery and to honor those who lost their lives there.