Day One’s Bill of Essential Rights: Reparations, Basic Needs, Freedom of Movement

…and guns are a problem, not a solution.

Organizers of the new Day One Movement announced in the Black Hills yesterday say they want to wipe the slate of 250 years of American injustice and start anew on July 5:

“In order for us to build a path forward, we have to acknowledge the past,” said Nick Tilsen, a community organizer in the He Sapa.

Organizers described the movement as a response to what they called a false narrative dividing poor, working class, Indigenous, Black and immigrant communities. They said they will not be celebrating July 3 or July 4, instead focusing on the changes they say need to happen starting July 5 and over the next 250 years.

“We know that there has been a division, a perpetuated false narrative between poor folks, between working class folks, between Indigenous folks, Black folks, and immigrants,” said Brenda Pérez, an immigrant labor rights organizer. “And we know that our struggles are one, but we know that those in power continuously work towards pushing us apart.”

Organizers also framed the movement as an act of resistance and vision-building.

“So we’re here to build something new. So, as we resist the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in the United States and around the world, we’re also here out of love, to radically envision a nation that would work for everybody,” Tilsen said [Regan Duceman, “Day One Movement Launches in South Dakota, Calling for Land Back and Reparations,” KOTA-TV, 2026.06.29].

Day One proposes to fix our Constitutional Bill of Rights with a more comprehensive Bill of Essential Rights, “a new framework that gives all humans and Mother Earth the rights and dignity we deserve”. The first two of the ten proposed Essential Rights address not universal human rights but specific claims of two oppressed groups against the unjustly ruling majority:

1. Right to LANDBACK: The land that the United States of America was founded on was stolen from Indigenous Peoples who have existed and thrived here for centuries beyond the establishment of the USA and continue to remain as sovereign Peoples. Return of land, Honoring the Treaties, and reclaiming everything that has been taken by colonization, is necessary for collective liberation.

2. Right to Reparations: The land on which the United States of America was founded was built with the exploitation of African peoples who were forcibly removed from their homelands. It is the right of all generational survivors of these atrocities to receive acknowledgement, compensation, restitution, and rehabilitation for the enslavement of our peoples and all the harms that flowed from slavery’s legacy, including racial segregation, mass criminalization, forced sterilization, family separation, land theft, and militarized police violence. These reparations must be determined and driven by Black people, and must include lasting repair and change at the individual, communal, and systemic levels [this quote and the following from “Bill of Essential Rights,” Day One Movement, retrieved 2026.06.30.].

There may be a conflict between these two reparative rights. The first asserts the right of Indigenous people to reclaim “everything…taken by colonization”. The second posits that the forced labor of black slaves gives their descendants just claim to the land and wealth they built. Slavery reparations “must be determined and driven by Black people,” so what happens if Black people determine they want ownership, individual or collective, of the land their enslavers took by colonization, the land the first essential right says must be returned to Indigenous people?

3. Right to Self-Determination and Sovereignty: People have the power and autonomy to make choices for ourselves without political influence, state-sanctioned violence, or external pressure. Indigenous peoples can freely exercise their sovereignty and choose their governance structure. When there is disagreement, people have the right to freely organize, mobilize, and protest.

This third right includes the vitally important freedom of expression that headlines our current Bill of Rights. But this declaration of self-determination needs to clarify its terms. Does “people” mean this right applies only to groups, or does it recognize individual self-determination and expression as well?

This third right also needs to clarify the things its says intrude on sovereignty. “State-sanctioned violence” is certainly bad, but what about “external pressure”: does that preclude the ability of anyone outside a group to explain or campaign for policies that might affect that group… or, if “people” includes “persons”, does it mean I can’t try to persuade a friend or neighbor to vote for Democrats? The same question goes for “political influence”—isn’t “political influence” exactly what the Day One organizers are trying to wield, uniting and mobilizing Black and Indigenous peoples to influence change in the body politic?

4. Right to Consent: We choose what we consent to—in terms of our lands, bodies, mind, health, knowledge, data, and education, including but not limited to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.

5. Right to Basic Needs: Access to safe, sustainable, and quality housing; clean drinking water; nourishing food; and clean air for all peoples and living beings. Access to comprehensive, universal healthcare and utilities we depend on. Access to education that is representative of the true history of this nation-state and all the cultures that reside within it.

6. Right to Religion and Culture: This includes the protection and preservation of history, traditional languages, spirituality, religion, and cultural traditions, sacred sites, and ways of life without the threat of genocide and nation-state sanctioned violence.

These three rights all make sense. #5 in particular recognizes that liberty is a practical matter: you can’t fully exercise your rights to free speech and self-determination if you are starving, suffocating, or sick and dying.

7. Right to Dignity and Bodily Autonomy: Every human has the right to make informed decisions about their health, body, and life, while sharing in the collective responsibility of public health. Everyone deserves to be able to express their fully realized selves, no matter who or where they are.

But #7 reminds us that liberty doesn’t exist in a personal vacuum. Liberty is a community affair, and the community has to be as healthy as the individual. Translation: shots. You don’t get to invoke some absolute individual autonomy to evade getting the vaccines for measles and flu vaccines that protect the entire community from diseases that would hamper their exercise of their rights.

8. Right to Safety: Every person and every community deserves to be safe. That means an end to empire, state-sanctioned violence, war, gun violence, police, ICE, border patrol, and prisons. It means an end to the patriarchal, capitalistic, and punitive systems that harm everyone, and accountability practices rooted in restorative justice instead of punishment. We believe that all people have the right to protect and defend themselves against violence.

Here the Bill of Essential Rights mentions guns and self-defense. But #8 does not explicitly grant people the right to carry firearms. Nor does this document, coming from groups explicitly seeking to overthrow the existing power structure, explicitly embrace armed rebellion. Instead, this right names guns and the violence they support as a threat to rights that must be ended, along with prisons, police, war, and empire.

9. Right to Move Freely and Belong: Every human has the right to move freely around the planet. This means colonial borders must be dissolved, violent entities like border patrol and ICE must be closed down, all genocides and wars must be ended, and travel bans and restrictions must be lifted.

Freedom to go and live wherever you want—that’s not a new concept. That’s the right the Pilgrims invoked when they hopped in the Mayflower and came to settle in Massachusetts… uh oh.

In framing its Bill of Essential Rights as a repair/replacement to the U.S. Bill of Rights, Day One ostensibly addresses an American audience. But #9 looks outward and calls for international cooperation. Dissolving colonial borders is an interesting idea, but even if we shut down ICE and our border posts, the Canadians and Mexicans will still need some persuading (external pressure? political influence?) to stop stopping and questioning Americans who come to visit.

Right to Regenerative Food Systems and a Protected Planet: Traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous food systems and waterways, and proven solutions to the climate crisis must be centered, respected, and allowed to flourish, in order to protect Mother Earth, humanity, and all living beings. Our communities deserve access to localized food systems that withstand the geopolitical upheavals without dependency on the federal government.

#10 finally gets to the “Mother Earth” stuff promised in Day One’s preamble. This final right extends the idea of Maslovian idea that we can’t enjoy liberty without meeting our basic needs, and all of our basic needs flow from a habitable and productive ecosystem. #10 also embodies some Wendell Berry farm philosophy: we need to ditch the corporate, government-subsidized model of industrial agriculture and return to small local farms that feed our neighbors, our bodies, and our souls.

The Bill of Essential Rights raises come questions about language and practical application, just like the first ten Amendments to the United States Constitution. While reparations are messy—especially given the possibly conflciting claims of Black and Indigenous Americans—this document provides a useful focus on the basic practical conditions necessary to human liberty.