HISTORY TOPICS
American Indian Movement (AIM)
AIM — the American Indian Movement — began in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the summer of 1968. It began taking form when 200 people from the Indian community turned out for a meeting called by a group of Native American community activists led by George Mitchell, Dennis Banks, and Clyde Bellecourt. Frustrated by discrimination and decades of federal Indian policy, they came together to discuss the critical issues restraining them and to take control over their own destiny. Out of that ferment and determination, the American Indian Movement was born.
AIM's leaders spoke out against high unemployment, slum housing, and racist treatment, fought for treaty rights and the reclamation of tribal land, and advocated on behalf of urban Indians whose situation bred illness and poverty. They opened the K-12 Heart of the Earth Survival School in 1971, and in 1972, mounted the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, D.C., where they took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), in protest of its policies, and with demands for their reform.
The revolutionary fervor of AIM's leaders drew the attention of the FBI and the CIA, who then set out to crush the movement. Their ruthless suppression of AIM during the early 1970s sowed the seeds of the confrontation that followed in February, 1973, when AIM leader Russell Means and his followers took over the small Indian community of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in protest of its allegedly corrupt government. When FBI agents were dispatched to remove the AIM occupiers, a standoff ensued. Through the resulting siege that lasted for 71 days, two people were killed, twelve wounded, and twelve hundred arrested. Wounded Knee was a seminal event, drawing worldwide attention to the plight of American Indians. AIM leaders were later tried in a Minnesota court and, after a trial that lasted for eight months, were acquitted of wrongdoing.
GET STARTED WITH SECONDARY SOURCES:
- Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret War Against the Black
Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, by Ward Churchill
and Jim Vander Wall.
Boston: South End Press, 1988.
MHS call number: HV8141 .C46 1988. - "The American Indian Struggle," by Gillian Ronson.
In Discussion Bulletin, vol. 36, no. 23 (July 1979): pp. 3-13.
MHS call number: E93 .R66 1979. - Blood of the Land: The Government and Corporate War Against
the American Indian Movement, by Rex Weyler.
New York: Everest House, 1982.
MHS call number: E93 .W64. - The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars
Against Domestic Dissent, by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander
Wall.
Boston: South End Press, 1990.
MHS call number: HV8144.F43 C48 1990. - Ghost Dancing the Law: The Wounded Knee Trials,
by John William Sayer.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.
MHS call number: KF224.B27 S39 1997. - In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, by Peter Matthiessen.
New York: Viking Press, 1983.
MHS call number: E93 .M46 1983. - Loud Hawk: The United States Versus the American Indian
Movement, by Kenneth S. Stern.
Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
MHS call number: KF224.B36 S74 1994. - Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance, by Leonard
Peltier.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.
MHS call number: E99.O3 P45 1999. - Renegades: The Second Battle of Wounded Knee, by
Susan L.M. Huck.
Belmont, Mass.: American Opinion, [1973].
MHS call number: E99.O3 H84. - Revolutionary Activities Within the United States: The American
Indian Movement, United States Congress, Senate Subcommittee
to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and
Other Internal Security Laws.
Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976.
MHS call number: E93.U52 U47. - "Russell Means: The Profound and Outspoken Activist Shares
Some of His Most Ardent Convictions," by John Edgar Wideman.
In Modern Maturity, vol. 38, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct. 1995): pp. 68-79.
MHS call number: E99.O3 M388 1995. - Social Movements in the Courtroom: The Wounded Knee Trials,
1973-1975, by John William Sayer.
Ph.D. thesis (University of Minnesota), 1991.
MHS call number: E99.O3 S29 1991. - Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell
Means, by Russell Means, with Marvin J. Wolf.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
MHS call number: E99.O3 M386 1995. - Why Wounded Knee?: A Report, from the Why Wounded
Knee Coordination and Information Committee.
[Minneapolis, Minn.: The Committee, 1974]
MHS call number: E93 .W72 1974. - Wounded Knee, 1890-1973.
[St. Paul, Minn.: Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee, 1973].
MHS call number: E99.O3 W68 1973. - Wounded Knee: The Meaning and Significance of the Second
Incident, by Rolland Dewing.
New York: Irvington Publishers, 1985.
MHS call number: E99 .O3 D48 1985
PRIMARY RESOURCES:
- "Nokomis: Voices of Anishinabe Grandmothers," Sarah
Penman, producer.
[St. Paul, Minn.]: Twin Cities Public Television and Sarah Penman, 1994. Documents Ojibwe women's attempts to restore and preserve their Native American culture and heritage. They recall painful memories of growing up trying to conform to a white man's view of the world, a view that saw Indian ways as bad. They discuss the negative influence of the mission schools, the desecration of Indian sacred and ceremonial artifacts and grounds, and the movement by Indians to reassert their treaty rights.
MHS call number: Videotape no. 586 (in the A-V Collection; 1 55-minute videotape). - Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee Records.
Records documenting the history, internal operation, and legal practice of a committee established by lawyers, legal workers, and others dedicated to the defense of activists involved in the American Indian protest movement of the 1970s. The bulk of the records relate to the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, by American Indian activists (Feb.-May 1973) and to the massive and complex legal proceedings that followed (1973-1976). Events leading up to and following the occupation are also documented, including a protest riot in Custer, South Dakota (Feb. 6, 1973), the widespread harassment and violence on the Pine Ridge Reservation after the occupation, a shoot-out at Oglala, South Dakota (June 26, 1975), which resulted in the death of two FBI agents, and the legal actions taken in order to prohibit the publication of author Peter Matthiessen's account of the Oglala incident.
MHS call number: See the green Manuscripts Alpha Notebooks — filed under Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee — for a detailed list of boxes and locator numbers (there are 143 boxes); or use an electronic version of the inventory. - Newspapers and other periodicals that may be useful
for this topic:
- American Indian Movement Newsletter (Microfilm 1555)
- Minneapolis Star-Tribune (an index for articles published after 1970 is located in the Hubbs Microfilm Room)
- St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch (an index for articles published in 1967 or after is located in the Hubbs Microfilm Room)
- The Seventh Fire: Official Publication of Red School House and St. Paul American Indian Movement (Microfilm 1231)
- Check the library catalog for other materials.
