Eryn Wise

Eryn Wise

Washington DC action

With Republican Donald Trump headed to the White House, Native women led a huge demonstration in the nation's capital on Tuesday, calling for an end to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In his first 100 days in office, Trump has vowed to lift "roadblocks" to large infrastructure projects like Dakota Access. He's even invested his own money in the companies that are financing and operating the controversial pipeline.

But Eryn Wise of the International Indigenous Youth Council bore no ill will toward the incoming president despite his negative history in Indian Country. She came to Washington, D.C., with a simple yet strong message.

"I am here to protect his water as well," Wise said outside of the White House, where Trump will be residing come January 2017.

Wise, who is from the Jicarilla Apache Nation and Laguna Pueblo, was joined by three other Native women leaders -- LaDonna Brave Bull Allard (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe), Deborah Parker (Tulalip Tribes) and Judith LeBlanc (Caddo Nation) -- for the #NoDAPL Day of Action.

After staging a sit-in at the headquarters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, they led the crowd of about 1,000 people down the streets of Washington, even passing by the newly opened Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

That's where Wise, who has been living at the #NoDAPL encampment since the summer, made good on her promise. She momentarily stopped the march in front of the hotel, which is located on federal property, to offer a prayer.