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American Indian Movement
The Beginning
The
American Indian Movement (AIM)
was founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, and George Mitchell—all
Ojibwa Indians and graduates of that Indian finishing school, the
Minnesota State Penitentiary. Initially, the organization was
established to combat police brutality in Minneapolis, but it
quickly evolved into a full-fledged
Indigenous rights movement committed to uniting all Native
Peoples in an effort to uplift their communities and promote
cultural pride and sovereignty. The Movement spread to other urban
centers around the country and attracted—in fact created—a
whole new group of Native activists.
AIM Gains National
Exposure
In 1972, the Trail of Broken Treaties march
was scheduled to arrive in
Washington, DC, in time for the presidential election. An AIM caravan
from San Francisco met up with a caravan from Seattle and others
from around the country. The four-mile-long procession arrived
early on the morning of Friday, November 3, just before Election
Day. The Indians had notified the Nixon Administration of their
plans which included the presentation of a 20-point proposal for improving
U.S.-Indian relations.
The first of the
Indians' 20 Points demanded the restoration of their
constitutional treaty-making powers, removed by the provision in
the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act, and the next seven concerned
recognition of the sovereignty of Indian nations and the
revalidation of treaties, including the Fort Laramie Treaty of
1868. The fundamental demand was that Indians be dealt with
according to "our treaties." Other points were addressed to such
related matters as land-reform law and the restoration of a land
base, which would permit those Indians who wished to do so to
return to a traditional way of life. From the U.S. government's
point of view, to recognize or negotiate treaty claims all over
the country might necessitate the return of vast tracts of
America to the true owners, a very dangerous idea indeed.
When the
government refused to dialogue with the Indians, the protestors
occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. The government
negotiated with the Indians, then, but only to end the occupation, not to resolve their original 20-point list of
grievances. The government promised to look into the grievances
(they never did) and they also promised not to prosecute the
Indians for the BIA takeover (a promise broken like all the
others). To defuse the situation and end their own
embarrassment, the government eventually provided vehicles and
an early-morning police escort out of town plus under-the-table
money ($66,000) to pay the Indians' return travel expenses.
After the Trail
of Broken Treaties, AIM was classified "an extremist
organization" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and on
January 8, 1973, the leaders on the Trail were added to the
FBI's list of "key extremists." From that point, an organized
"neutralizing" of AIM leaders was begun.
The FBI's War Against
AIM
Following the BIA takeover, AIM chapters
nationwide were the focus of an intensive investigation and individual
members were targeted for arrest and prosecution. A few weeks after his return from
Washington, DC, in November 1972, for example, Peltier was falsely accused of
the attempted murder of a Milwaukee police officer. Leonard's
claim that he had been set up by the police was eventually
supported by several witnesses, including the police officer's
girl friend who said the officer had waved around one of Peltier's pictures, sent to the local police from FBI
headquarters, announcing his intention of "catching a big one
for the FBI."
In relation to Wounded Knee II, the FBI caused 542 separate
charges to be filed against those it identified as "key AIM leaders." This resulted in only 15 convictions, all
on such petty or contrived offenses as interfering with a
federal officer in the performance of his duty.
Having
identified AIM as an extremist threat to the United States, the Department
of Justice conducted such prosecutions over a two-year period in an
attempt to jail AIM members and ensnare them in lengthy court proceedings
thereby preventing further political activity. As noted previously, this
strategy met with only limited success and the FBI's war against the
American Indian Movement escalated.
A six-page
FBI memo dated April 24, 1975, "The Use of
Special Agents of the FBI in a Paramilitary Law Enforcement Operation in
the Indian Country," shows that, two months prior to the Oglala shoot-out, the FBI was preparing for a major
armed confrontation with AIM.
In
May of 1975, the FBI began a sizable build up of its agents,
mostly elite Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) members, on the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation in South Dakota.
In June 1975, SWAT teams from numerous divisions were
designated for special assignment at Pine Ridge.
A June 1975 FBI memo, discovered much later, referred to the potential
need for "military assault forces" to deal with AIM members. (It
should be noted that the use of military force by the
U.S. government at Wounded Knee in 1973 was ruled unlawful by
the courts.)
At the same time, the FBI "aided and
abetted" Tribal Chairman Dick Wilson who was intent on stamping
out any opposition to his administration by any means. The
Bureau, it has since been discovered, provided weapons to
Wilson's vigilantes—the Guardians
Of the Oglala Nation (GOONs)—and
stood by as the politically motivated injury and murder rates on
the reservation climbed.
As there was no corresponding AIM
build up on the reservation, nor preparation on the part of AIM
members for a confrontation with the authorities (despite the
FBI's false claim made later of the presence of bunkers at the
Jumping Bull compound), there is no doubt that the FBI alone set
the stage for the tragic shoot-out at Oglala on June 26, 1975.
AIM Today
The American Indian Movement
survived the turmoil of the 1970s. The FBI failed in its mission
to destroy AIM largely because it is not an organization of
people per se, but what its name states outright—a
Movement, a continuous series of actions moving towards
an objective. Regardless of mistakes made during that time or
the personalities involved, there is no doubt that the men and women
of AIM raised the consciousness of Indigenous Peoples,
sparked cultural pride, and engendered the Native activism seen
today.
AIM's current efforts include
protecting sacred lands, ensuring religious freedom, promoting
sovereignty, and ending the use of team mascots that further
racist stereotypes.
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