Standing Up for Standing Rock

Bronson Koenig, Wisconsin basketball star and member of the Ho-Chunk tribe, visits the #DAPL Protest

Prior to the beginning of the college basketball season, Wisconsin senior Bronson Koenig traveled to North Dakota to support the Dakota Access Pipeline protestors. “I didn’t know many people at the camp, but something was compelling me to go. My brother, Miles, our good friend Clint Parks and I made the drive from Madison in 14 hours, with the flag of our Ho-Chunk tribe flying from our trailer.” Photographer Alexandra Hootnick followed Bronson as he spent time with young members of the Standing Rock community and #DAPL supporters.

“I’d never played basketball surrounded by police and blockades.”

“I often felt like a minority within a minority. Not Native enough. Not white enough. Like a stranger in two lands.”

“My eyes kept wandering to the horizon — to the hills just a mile north where the bulldozers were.”

All images © Alexandra Hootnick/The Players’ Tribune