The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, once at the centre of the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, has fought back by building the largest solar energy farm in North Dakota. The tribe unveiled the solar farm on Friday, and right by their side was Big Little Lies star Shailene Woodley.
“Back on the res and feeling home again,” Woodley wrote in a lengthy Instagram post praising her “brothers” Dee Jay "Chiefeye" Two Bears and Cody Two Bears for creating Indigenized Energy and calling it “breathtaking” to witness.
“Fossil fuels were the reason tens of thousands of people came to standing rock in 2016... and now, they’re leading the way with sustainable and renewable energy sources. Talk about changing a narrative and switching a paradigm,” she wrote.
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In 2016, Woodley was among the hundreds of protesters arrested at Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Police charged Woodley with misdemeanor criminal trespassing and one count of misdemeanor engaging in a riot, though those charges were subsequently dropped and the actor reportedly "plead[ed] guilty to one count of disorderly conduct in return for one year of unsupervised probation."
Woodley later revealed that the arrest was one of the most traumatizing experiences of her life.
"I was strip-searched. Like get naked, turn over, spread your butt cheeks, bend over," she told Marie Claire U.K. in 2017. "They were looking for drugs in my ass."
The experience, however, hasn’t stopped Woodley from speaking up. Instead it seems to have inspired her to do more.
“Thank you #standingrock for being the groundbreaking leaders you are for the rest of us to learn from, grow beside, and create with,” Woodley wrote.