Native American Protest in 60's and 70's

Native American Protests

Background on Native American Life in the 60s
and 70s
o Little Power in Government of Selves
o population about 800,000
o most in cities or reservations
o 285 reservations w/ BIA governments
o 38% below poverty line
o high unemployment, drop out, disease 
and suicide rates
*     Low life expectancy

Indian Self Determination Act
Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance
Act Passed in 1975, was supposed to provide maximum
participation by Native Americans in federal programs
and services, such as education, to Indian communities.  

It wasn’t successful and Indian’s continued to have
little role in their own government. BIA remained 
most control over reservations.

The Beginning of the American Indian Movement
By the late 1960’s ten thousand Native Americans were
living in Minneapolis,  More than any single reservation
in Minnesota.  They lived in sub-standard housing, with
low incomes and high welfare rates.  There were many 
complaints of harassment and brutality at the hands of
the mainly European-American Minneapolis police force.
The "Indian Patrol" comprised of Chippewas followed 
around the police and were witnesses whenever an arrest
of an Indian was made.  The arrest rates for Indians 
went down to city averages. During the 9 month period 
the patrol worked.  George Mitchell and Dennis Banks, 
the leaders of the patrol, organized formally to protect
migrating Native Americans from ethnically selective 
law enforcement.  They called themselves the American
Indian Movement (AIM).

AIM
The American Indian Movement sought total 
separation from the United States.  They sought to
have total self determination, and be able to live 
free from their American oppressors.




WOUNDED KNEE 1973
On February 27, 1973, 54 cars of Oglala Sioux drive
into  the small town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
Many are armed.  The Sioux Activists begin by shooting
out street lights and taking guns and ammo from a 
trading post in town.  They placed all whites in the
town in one house, and set up road blocks.  They
had liberated the town that 80 years earlier was 
the site of a massacre of 300 Sioux men, women and
children by US troops.  The US Marshals began a
siege of the town, trying to starve out the militant
Sioux.  AIM and other groups of Indian Activists joined
the towns liberators.  The siege lasted 71 days, with
two Native American causalities.  It failed to 
accomplish the Sioux’s goals.  The Indians still had
 little self determination and land.

The Injustice Continues...
To this day the US government continues its persecution
of Native American Freedom Fighter.  For Instance,
Leonard Peltier, an AIM warrior, who was falsely
convicted of killing two FBI agents in a shoot out at
Pine Ridge Reservation, June 26, 1975.  He was
obviously not given justice, even his prosecutor has 
said he has no idea who committed the crimes he was 
accused of.  Many influential humanitarians, including
Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu support
Peltier’s bid for freedom, yet the US government denies
it , and Leonard continues to rot in prison, now in
nearly his 25th year of his two consecutive life term.