Leonard Peltier: ‘Today I am finally free’
‘Free Leonard Peltier’ film debuts on heels of AIM leader’s announced prison release, celebration planned in North Dakota
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Freed prisoner Leonard Peltier (center) celebrates his Feb. 18, 2025 release with Nick Tilsen (left) and Holly Cook Macarro. Peltier received clemency in final minutes of then-President Joe Biden (Photo Credit: Angel White Eyes, NDN Collective).
After nearly a half-century of efforts to free Leonard Peltier from a deemed wrongful imprisonment, his supporters plan a long-awaited welcome-home celebration on Feb. 19 at the Turtle Mountain Reservation. Peltier was granted clemency during the final minutes of then-President Joe Biden.
“Today I am finally free,” said Peltier in an NDN Collective statement after his Tuesday, Feb. 18 release from a Florida prison. “They may have imprisoned me, but they never took my spirit.” He thanked supporters worldwide who fought for his freedom. “I am finally going home.” He will join supporters and community members during a live-streamed welcome-home event on Wednesday.
Those who helped lead Peltier’s release include grassroots organizers and political strategists from the NDN Collective, a team also involved in the film production of “Free Leonard Peltier.” The documentary premiered Jan. 27 at the Sundance Film Festival, completed only days before its audience debut as filmmakers hustled to revise the ending upon news of the 11th-hour clemency order.
Peltier was convicted in 1977 of first-degree murder after the deaths of two FBI agents following political turbulence on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa citizen had been an active member of the American Indian Movement, whose members were present at the shootout with federal agents in 1975.
The Biden clemency is not a pardon, meaning the 80-year-old Peltier will be confined to his home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, where the NDN Collective provided a home. The organization, located in Rapid City, S.D., works to build the power and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples.
“This moment would not be happening without Secretary Deb Haaland and President Biden responding to the calls for Peltier’s release that have echoed through generations of grassroots organizing,” said Holly Cook Macarro, Government Affairs for NDN Collective. “Today is a testament to the many voices who fought tirelessly for Peltier’s freedom and justice.”
Macarro recently participated in a series of events at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival along with “Free Leonard Peltier” directors Jesse Short Bull and David France. After the film’s premiere, scores of people joined the directors on the stage at The Ray Theater in Park City. Many had participated in producing the documentary and were involved in helping free Peltier from his decades-long imprisonment.
During a Jan. 26 Sundance panel discussion about the documentary, France told the audience that the Peltier film had been completed 36 hours earlier. At the time, Peltier had been granted clemency but was still in prison awaiting his Feb. 18 release. Speakers said they would not rest until he walked out of prison. But Macarro and NDN Collective founder and CEO Nick Tilsen did see the story to its end on Tuesday.
“Leonard Peltier is free,” Tilsen said in a statement. “He never gave up fighting for his freedom so we never gave up fighting for him. Today our elder Leonard Peltier walks into the open arms of his people. Peltier’s liberation is invaluable in and of itself – yet just as his wrongful incarceration represented the oppression of Indigenous Peoples everywhere, his release today is a symbol of our collective power and inherent freedom.”
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