Native Americans have claimed their rights and their place in the U.S. through more than two centuries of activism, according to Frederick Hoxie, recently retired as a professor of history, law and American Indian studies at Illinois.

For months, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and its allies have protested the routing of an oil pipeline near its reservation in North Dakota – and recently won a temporary victory when federal officials put a hold on the pipeline’s completion. But the protest itself has been a significant event in the 200-year history of American Indian activism, says Frederick E. Hoxie, who told that history in the book “This Indian Country: American Indian Activists and the Place They Made.” Recently retired as a University of Illinois professor of history, law and American Indian studies, he spoke with the Illinois News Bureau about the protest and what it means.