Water Protectors Shut Down Wells Fargo 

Shortly after 7:30 a.m. on Dec 1, a group of about three dozen people entered the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters at 600 S. 4th St. in downtown Minneapolis. Six activists, split into two groups of three, locked their arms together in devices known as lock boxes, in front of the main access elevators. After several altercations where employees tried to force their way through the barricade, building security disabled the elevator banks and instructed them to use an alternate route through a freight elevator. One unnamed Wells Fargo employee was recorded on film choking a water protector and putting another in a headlock in his attempt to cross through the blockade.
They accepted a private meeting with Wells Fargo Head of Government and Public Relations Jon R. Campbell who promised to meet with tribal elders from the Standing Rock Sioux to discuss their investments in the Dakota Access Pipeline.  The six individuals agreed to unlock themselves and left the building. No arrests were made.
Another action led by Indigenous water protectors occupied the Wells Fargo branch at 2600 Franklin Ave., in the Seward neighborhood. Two water protectors locked themselves to a large steel table inside the bank while supporters reclaimed Franklin Avenue. The police response was starkly different from the previous lockdown (which had been made up of white allies). Almost immediately, an officer grabbed an Indigenous man with a megaphone and attempted to push him to the doors. Supporters were forced outside and the doors were locked and blocked with tarps as a Minneapolis Fire Department crew used a “Jaws of Life” tool, grinders  and other power tools to extract the water protectors.
The Franklin Avenue corridor is an area rich with the history of Native American struggle. For decades, Native people have been displaced from their ancestral homelands and driven from their reservations, and have started new lives on Franklin Avenue. The American Indian Movement began on Franklin Avenue in the late 1960s, and continues to maintain a strong presence in the diverse Native community centered around Little Earth of United Tribes, the country’s largest urban concentration of Native people. Today, Wells Fargo’s lending practices continue to displace and systematically oppress people of color and Indigenous people in Franklin Avenue neighborhoods through foreclosure and gentrification.
Charlie Thayer, of Honor the Earth, said, “Today we stand strongly in solidarity with our relatives fighting against the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota and the proposed Line 3 pipeline here in Minnesota. This is a movement for the water and future generations. Wells Fargo currently has investment ties to several pipeline projects being proposed through Native lands, we ask all of the 500+ Indigenous nations throughout Turtle Island to divest in Wells Fargo and invest in creating sustainable communities to protect the interests of the next seven generations.”
Ozuya Cikala, one of the water protectors who locked down in a Minneapolis Wells Fargo, said,  “I am Oglala Lakota. Someone has to speak for the earth!  If no one here, then who will? I’m only one but I represent millions before me with the same love and compassion I have for water. Wells Fargo is a major investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline, which we are currently fighting to stop on the front lines in North Dakota and also in the courts. We as human beings need to speak for our mother earth and break dependency on fossil fuels and move forward with renewable energy.”