San Francisco Bay Area American Indians Join Prayer Vigil to Honor Shooting Victims

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Currents. Discussion »

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA – Members of the American Indian community in the San Francisco Bay area joined members of the Gurdwara Sahib Sikh temple of El Sobrante, California in a candlelight prayer vigil last Friday evening outside of the Berkeley City Hall in a show of solidarity.

Wounded Knee DeOcampo, Tuolumne Me-wuk
and Amrich Pannu Singh

The prayer vigil was held to honor the six Sikh worshippers killed in a shooting rampage by a white supremacist at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, on Sunday, August 5.

“I told the Sikh crowd gathered that as indigenous people, we feel their pain because we have been victims,”

Norman "Wounded Knee" DeOcampo, Tuolumne Me-wuk, told the Native News Network.

“I told them our sacred sites are still be desecrated and we understand what they have been through.”

“I told them, the Sikhs, we still are teaching others about our culture. They, the Sikhs, have to now educate the public about who they are. We are still working to get the respect we deserve,”

Wounded Knee continued.

Wounded Knee said he felt honored to have been asked to perform a prayer at the inter-faith prayer vigil.