Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and supporters gathered near the Missouri River in North Dakota to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline. Protesters argued that construction threatened water supplies and culturally significant land. The camps drew international attention to Indigenous sovereignty and environmental survival.

Poetry readings and written testimony became part of the movement's cultural resistance. Indigenous poets including Layli Long Soldier, Natalie Diaz and Heid E. Erdrich helped place treaty rights, water and continuing settler colonialism within contemporary verse.