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AIM flag
The 'American Indian Movement' (AIM), is a
Native American activist organization in the
United States. AIM burst on the international scene with its seizure of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in
Washington, D.C., in
1972 and the
1973 standoff at Wounded Knee,
South Dakota, on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. AIM was cofounded in 1968 by
Dennis Banks, Herb Powless,
Clyde Bellecourt, Eddie Benton Banai, and many others in the Indian community, almost 200 total.
Russell Means was another early leader.
In the decades since AIM's founding, the group has led protests advocating Indigenous American interests, inspired cultural renewal, monitored police activities and coordinated employment programs in cities and in rural reservation communities across the United States. AIM has often supported other indigenous interests outside the United States, as well.
AIM today
Founded in
Minneapolis, MN on July 28, 1968,
[1], AIM's original mission included protecting indigenous people from police abuse, using CB radios and police scanners to get to the scenes of alleged crimes involving indigenous people before or as police arrived, for the purpose of documenting or preventing police brutality. AIM Patrols still work the streets of
Minneapolis.
Bonding together
Prior to the founding in July of 1968, some of the founding members of AIM had experienced years of discrimination from a dominant society. Not feeling a part of white culture or an association with their Ojibwa heritage, several acted out in ways deemed anti-social and illegal by both societies. These actions would result in time served in the Minnesota penal system. It is here that ideologies would emerge that would define the initial course of AIM.
Clyde Bellecourt would be introduced to Eddie Benton Banai while incarcerated, and a reintroduction to his Indian lineage would result. "The founders and leaders of AIM appear to have undergone some kind of ideological conversion experience which enabled them to accept their Indianness".
[2] It was at this time that C. Bellecourt accepted the fact that "he wasn't the dirty Indian he's been told he was by White students at school, where he went through all that racism and hatred".
[3] This is related through Vernon Bellecourt who not only spent time in the penal system, but had failed to fully adjust to life as an outsider in a discriminating culture. His brother Clyde instilled pride and a sense of direction to Vernon, who ultimately became an early leader to the cause of AIM. This new ideology would become paramount to the future course of AIM and its leadership.
AIM has been active in opposing the use of indigenous
caricatures as mascots for sports teams, such as the
Cleveland Indians, the
Atlanta Braves and the
Washington Redskins, organizing protests at World Series and Super Bowl games involving those teams.
AIM has been committed to improving the conditions that face Native peoples. AIM has founded institutions to address those needs including the Heart of The Earth School, Little Earth Housing, International Indian Treaty Council, AIM StreetMedics, American Indian Opportunities and Industrialization Center (one of the largest Indian job training programs), KILI radio, and Indian Legal Rights Centers.
[4]
Founders of AIM, according to
Peter Matthiessen's book ''In the Spirit of Crazy Horse'', include
Dennis Banks;
Clyde Bellecourt, who directs the
Peace Maker Center in Minneapolis and administers
U.S. Department of Labor job-development services;
Eddie Benton-Benai, author and school administrator for the Red School House in Minneapolis and at
Lac Courte Oreilles, Wisconsin; and
Russell Means, who has worked as an actor and remains politically active, running for Governor of
New Mexico and for president of the Oglala Sioux nation in
2002. Another well-known AIM member is
Leonard Peltier, who is currently serving a prison term for his conviction in the murder of two FBI agents at the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in
1975. In
2004 AIM held protests against the
Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, and even threatened to blow up the keel boat of the nationally recognized re-enactment group.
Early AIM protest tactics
The tactics AIM adopted were premised on the fact that Indian activists failed to achieve results at the time of
its founding. AIM believed that advocates for Indian interests who had worked within the American political system
had not been effective. The political system simply ignored Indian interests. The AIM leadership decided at its
founding that a more aggressive approach had to be adopted in order for their voices to be heard. Up to this time,
Indian advocacy had been passive and comprised of the typical lobbying effort with the Congress and the state
legislatures.
[5]
AIM used the American press and media to present its own unvarnished message to the American public. It did so
by ensuring that the members of the press would have an event they wanted to cover for their respective newspaper or
television/radio station. If successful, news outlets would seek out AIM spokespersons for interviews and receive
its message. Instead of relying on traditional lobbying efforts with the Congress or state legislature, AIM directly
sought out the American public to ensure it would get AIM’s message. AIM was always on the look out for an event that
would result in publicity. Thus, the seizure of the Mayflower replica on Thanksgiving Day in 1970 during ceremonies
commemorating the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim’s landing at Plymouth Rock, the occupation of Mount Rushmore in
1971, the Trail of Broken Treaties march and takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington,
D.C. in 1972, AIM’s occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in 1973, the Longest Walk in 1978, and
other events during the 1970s were designed to achieve this effect. All of these events were undertaken to ensure AIM
would be noticed in order to highlight its belief that the rights of Indian people had eroded.
[6]
In view of the nature of its more provocative advocacy for Indian rights and the experience of other minority
groups during the civil rights era, AIM encountered a similar reaction from the government.
[7] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used paid informants to report on AIM’s activities and its members.
[8] Local authorities and the FBI were also not adverse to using violence against AIM or its members.
[9]
Other activities
During the
Sandinista/Indian conflict in
Nicaragua of the mid-1980s, Russell Means sided with
Miskito Indians opposing the Sandinista government due to allegations of forced relocations of as many as 8,500 Miskito. Predictably, this stance damaged some of AIM's support from many White dominated left wing organizations in the U.S., who opposed Contra activities and supported the Sandinista movement. Contra activities included insurgent recruitment among Nicaraguan Indian groups including some Miskitos. Means' position recognized the difference between opposition to the Sandinista government by the Miskito, Sumo, and Rama on one hand, and the Reagan administration's support of the Contras, who were dedicated to the overthrow of the Sandinista regime.
[10]
More recently, Banks and the Bellecourts have rallied in support of John Graham and Arlo Looking Cloud, who were indicted in 2003 for the
1976 murder of
Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash. Means and other AIM affiliates believe that those who ordered Aquash's murder, even if they are AIM leaders, should be held accountable. Means argues that Looking Cloud's conviction has made Looking Cloud a scapegoat for those who actually ordered Aquash's murder. Each of the current AIM factions accuses the other of complicity in Aquash's murder.
[11]
Many AIM chapters remain committed to confronting the government and corporate forces that seek to marginalize indigenous peoples.
[12] Some of these activities included challenging the ideological foundations of anti-indigenous policies, which they believe are exemplified in national holidays such as Columbus Day
[13] and Thanksgiving. AIM argues that Thanksgiving should be a
National Day of Mourning, and protests the continuing theft of indigenous peoples' territories and natural resources.
[14][15][16]
Ideological differences within AIM
As is true with many national liberation movements (
PLO,
African National Congress), ideological differences emerged within AIM over the years. In 1993, AIM split into two main factions, each claiming that it was the authentic inheritor of the AIM tradition, and that the other had betrayed the original prinicples of the movement. One group, based in Minneapolis, MN and associated with the Bellecourts, is known as the AIM-Grand Governing Council, while the other segment of the movement, led by, among others,
Russell Means, was named AIM-International Confederation of Autonomous Chapters.
The split was formalized when the latter group issued its
"Edgewood Declaration" in 1993, citing organizational grievances and authoritarian leadership by the Bellecourts. However, ideological differences seem to have simmered for a long time, with the Grand Governing Council (GCC) presenting a spiritual, albeit more mainstream, approach to activism. The GCC tends toward a more centralized, controlled political philosophy. The autonomous chapters argue that AIM has always been organized as a series of decentralized, autonomous chapters, with local leadership that is accountable to local constituencies. The autonomous chapters reject the assertions of central control by the Minneapolis group as contrary both to indigenous political traditions, and to the original philosophy of AIM. The autonomous chapters within AIM, while also spiritually guided by indigenous ceremonialism, tend more toward third world national liberation strategies and indigenous nationalism, as recently embodied in the movement of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico, and in the election of
Evo Morales in Bolivia.
The Pine Ridge incidents
In 1973,
AIM activists barricaded themselves in the hamlet of
Wounded Knee on the
Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. They were alleged to have taken eleven hostages, which led to a seventy-one-day standoff with federal agents. In the ensuing trials most accused AIM members were acquitted.
The 1973 stand-off centered around a federal settlement of Pine Ridge's claim to the gold-rich
Black Hills of South Dakota, as well as allegations of federal and tribal police brutality on the Pine Ridge Reservation and allegations of brutality by a tribal group affiliated with the tribe's government
Guardians Of the Oglala Nation (GOONS).
On
June 26,
1975, a gun battle between AIM members and FBI agents resulted in the shooting deaths of Joseph Stuntz and two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams.
Leonard Peltier was eventually convicted of the agents' deaths. Many AIM activists claim that the AIM members who shot at the FBI agents were engaged in self-defense, and thus the killing was not a murder. Indeed, two of Peltier's co-defendants in the murder case were acquitted on grounds of self-defense in a separate trial. Peltier's critics, on the other hand, point out that one of the agents was shot and killed at close range after being wounded, with his hands up. This killing and the subsequent conviction of Peltier have been major bones of contention between activists and FBI agents.
US Court of Appeals Judge
Gerald Heaney concluded that "Native Americans" were partially culpable for the
1975 firefight in which Stuntz, Coler and Williams died, but that the federal government had "overreacted" during and after the 1973 Wounded Knee stand-off. Heaney said that overreaction created a climate of terror that led to the fatal shoot-out.
As of 2004, the
Sioux nations have yet to accept a settlement they were offered in compensation for the Black Hills. Since 1973, several AIM-affiliated groups have set up camp at the Black Hills to resist what they see as an arbitrary settlement.
AIM maintained that Wounded Knee residents had invited their assistance in 1973 to defend their homes against official and vigilante attacks, but that the FBI then surrounded them, effectively holding the AIM members hostage. Many Wounded Knee residents dispute this, and say that the AIM occupation led to the destruction of their community and homes. Several trials of AIM members resulted from the confrontation, which resulted in some court-room brawls with U.S. Marshals, but few AIM members were convicted for their roles in the standoff.
Attorney Larry Levanthal, who served as counsel for AIM said, "The courts found that there was illegal use of the military, illegal wiretapping, false testimony, bribing of witnesses, covering up of crimes, subornation of perjury, deception of the counsel and deception of the courts."
AIM has been the subject of much controversy, some of it centering around the
1977 trial of
Leonard Peltier, the AIM member convicted of the
1975 Pine Ridge murders of two FBI agents. Some activists doubt that he was responsible for these killings, and
Amnesty International, among dozens of others throughout the world, has called for his release.
[17] Other activists say the murders occurred in a war-like environment, and that Peltier's role in the killings should be reviewed in that context.
[18][19]
Another famous AIM member was
Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, for whose
1976 murder two other
1970s AIM affiliates, John Graham and
Arlo Looking Cloud, were indicted in
2003. Looking Cloud was eventually convicted. Graham's trial is still awaiting his extradition from
Canada. In the decades before the indictments, some activists alleged that the
FBI played a part or covered up her murder. Folk singer
Larry Long detailed the anti-FBI allegations in a song titled Anna Mae (re-released on Run For Freedom/Sweet Thunder, Flying Fish, 1997). Singer-songwriter
Buffy Saint-Marie wrote ''Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee'', referencing both Peltier and Pictou-Aquash. The song was recorded by the
Indigo Girls for the
1200 Curfews album.
AIM take-overs
At a time when peaceful sit-ins were a common protest tactic, AIM takeovers in its early days were notably forceful. Some appeared to be spontaneous outcomes of protest gatherings and sometimes included armed seizure of public facilities. AIM takeovers and occupations include:
★ Boarded and seized the
Mayflower II ship on Thanksgiving Day of 1970 (the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims' landing at Plymouth Rock)
[20]
★ Abandoned property at the Naval Air Station near
Minneapolis, Minnesota,
1970
★ Winter Dam, Lac Courte Oreilles, Wisconsin, (AIM assist), July,
1971
★
Mount Rushmore, July 5, 1971
★
Bureau of Indian Affairs Headquarters, Washington D.C., November
1972 (sacked building, 24 arrested), as part of
Trail of Broken Treaties
★ Custer County Courthouse,
1973 (routed after riot)
★
Pine Ridge Reservation, 1973 (71 days, at least two dead)
Although commonly associated with the American Indian Movement, the
Alcatraz Island occupation of 1969 was actually organized by a loose confederation of Indian groups called the "Indians of All Tribes." While the nascent AIM's role in the occupation was at most minimal, this event should be understood as a catalyst to AIM's rapid growth and development.
The U.S. Government held that the American Indian Movement was an "extremist" organization, because of "illegal bombing, bomb-making, or other terrorist activity." AIM members are alleged to have bombed the visitor's center at Mount Rushmore on June 27, 1975, and to have planted additional bombs at power plants around the Pine Ridge reservation that same year.
[21]
See also
★
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador
★
Zapatista Army of National Liberation
★
Thunderheart
★
Alcatraz-Red Power Movement
Notes, References
1. IWFJ
2. Rachel A. Bonney, "The Role of AIM Leaders in Indian Nationalism." American Indian Quarterly 3, no. 3 (1977): 209-223.
3. Penthouse interview: Vernon Bellecourt."He is the symbol of the most militant Indian group since Geronimo. (July,1973): 59-64. 122, 131-132.
4. AIMovement
5. Dennis Banks, Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 62-63 & 105.
6. Banks, 108-113; Leonard Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes, Crow Dog: Four Generations of Sioux Medicine Men (New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1996), 170-171; Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes, Lakota Woman (New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1990), 88.
7. See generally, Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, “Agents of repression: the FBI's secret wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement,” Boston, MA: South End Press, 1988.
8. Banks, 266-283; See also, U. S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate the
Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws. Revolutionary activities within the United States: the American Indian Movement: report of the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary. 94th Cong., 2nd sess., September 1976.
9. Banks, 178-179, 199; Leonard Crow Dog, 169; Russell Means and Marvin J. Wolf, Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), 206, 240-241,318-319.
10. russellmeans.com
11. IWFJ
12. Westword
13. Transform Columbus Day
14. WSDP
15. Save the Peaks
16. Gwichin SC
17. Free Peltier
18. loc.cit.
19. No Parole Peltier
20. russellmeans.com
21. The FBI Files on the American Indian Movement and Wounded Knee [Microform], ed. Rolland Dewing (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1986); Hendricks, Steve. The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country. 1st ed. New York, NY: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006; USA Today, "Protecting Mount Rushmore from terrorism difficult, report says," 7/2/2005; http://www.jfamr.org/doc/kmtest1.html
External links
★
AIM Grand Governing Council homepage
★
American Indian Movement of Colorado
★
International Confederation of Autonomous chapters of AIM
★
Encyclopedia of North American Indians: American Indian Movement
★ AIM's
"Background on US Government War Against AIM"
★ http://www.dickshovel.com/crimes.html article by ward churchill about A.I.M.
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