Il
Portland Observer
Thursday, June 24, 1976
Page 3
Under siege, AIM finds its spiritual roots
by A n drew Koss and Stephen Most
(PNS)
Three years after the inter
nation ally publicized O ccupation of
W ounded K nee, South D a ko ta, the
American Indian Movement (A IM ) which
led the uprising appears, on the surface,
to be a shambles.
The A IM leadership has been im pri
soned or chased underground and the
organization's time and energy has been
tied up in over ISO separate court rases.
Dennis Hanks and Russell Means, the
prime movers of the organization, are
reported to be bitterly divided over
their future roles, and Means was re
rently the target of an assassination
attempt, allegedly carried out by mem
hers of a rival A IM faction.
In addition, A IM 's legal offense/de
fense office has been unable to generate
sufficient political or financial support
for its various legal battles. And even
A IM spokespeople quietly acknowledge
that its national office is barely func
tioning.
All this, Indian activists claim, points
to the success of an ambitious PHI
effort to disrupt and dismantle the
militant Indiun movement by a combina
tion of harassment, infiltration and divi
sion of leadership
tactics strikingly si
m ila r to the co n tro v e rs ia l C O IN T E L
PRO techniques w ith which fed eral
agents struck at militant Black organize
tions during the late 1960s and early
1970s.
Hut given the continuing series of
critical A IM setbacks, a curious pheno
inenon remains: what began as a small
band of urban, politically minded refor
mers has been transformed into a per
vasive,
decentralized spiritual move
ment woven into the fabric of tradition
al Indian culture. As such, A IM has
ignited what one Indian leader calls "the
spiritual rebirth of our nation."
The Turning Point
Since its founding in 196H as an urban
organization for unemployed Indians
who had come to cities through the
federal relocation program, A IM has
gone through various transformations.
Its early successes were chiefly con
fined to the cities. In St. Paul A IM led a
drive to persuade big industries to
employ Indians. In Minneapolis it work
ed with the Office of Economic Oppor
tunity to channel funds into native
peoples' organizations.
The Minneapolis A IM patrol followed
police who were arresting and beating
Indians, then appeared in courts as
witnesses to prove a pattern of discri
mination. W ithin a year, arrest rates
dropped sharply.
A IM work in Minneapolis also led to
the building of an Indian Center and the
first urban Indian housing project with
230 homes.
These efforts made A IM known as
the most effective Indian activist group,
and branches soon sprang up in cities
with native populations throughout the
country.
But the critical turning point in the
movement occured when leaders visited
medicine man l^sonard Crow Dog on the
Rosebud Sioux Reservation. Crow Dog
advised them that to be a true Indian
organization they needed to return to
the spiritual heart of traditional Indian
culture
a spark still preserved by the
traditional and holy people.
Said one leader, “That is actually when
the A m erican In d ian M o vem en t was
born."
The Sacred Hoop
Soon after. A IM united with tradi
tional Sioux and members of the Oglala
Civil Rights Commission to take a stand
at Wounded Knee. They chose the site of
the 1690 massacre to protest unpunished
killings of Indians and the one man rule of
the tribal president, Richard Wilson, be
cause, as Wallace Black Elk said:
"The hoop, the sacred hoop was bro
ken here at Wounded Knee, and it will
come back again. The stake here that
represents the tree of life, the tree will
bloom, it will flower again, and all the
people will rejoin and comc back to the
sacred road, the red road."
During and after the Wounded Knee
occupation. A IM groups formed spon
taneously on reservations throughout
the U.S. A IM inspired actions by Nava
jo, Menominee and other groups oc
cured independently of the central hier
archy, under local leadership.
"That's the best thing about the
movement," says Dennis Hanks today.
"The rank and file are taking steps on
their own, without waiting for orders
from their leaders."
Assult on Leadership
Most of the top leaders are currently
embroiled in legal battles with state and
federal authorities. Russell Means, a
m ajor fig u re in the W ounded Knee
occupation, fares a two-toTen year jail
sentence on a riot conviction.
Leonard Crow Dog. now the move
ment's "spiritual leader", was recently
released from jail pending an appeal of
Joe Joseph
Your Community
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3 9 3 3 N.E. Union 2 8 2 1 -3 6 8 0
an assault conviction. A IM colounder
Dennis Hanks is fighting extradition to
South Dakota, where, he insists, he will
be killed by authorities if he is forced to
return.
Two A IM members have just gone on
trial in Cedar Falls. Iowa, for the mur
der of two FB I agents last summer.
And two others have been in jail with
out trial since 1974 in Ventura, Califor
nia. accused of murdering a taxi driver.
For months following the murder of
two FB I agents and an Indian at Oglala,
South Dakota, on June 26, 1975, the
FBI virtually occupied the Pine Ridge
reservation with 150 agents - the heav
iest concentration of federal police, per
capita, in the country.
Four Indians were eventually charged
with the agents' deaths. All but one,
I,eonard Peltier, who is to be extradited
from Canada, are now on trial.
According to the F B I, Peltier was
traveling with Dennis Banks, his wife
Kamook. and three others in November
of last year when Oregon police stopped
them and charged them with carrying
dynamite. Hanks and Peltier escaped,
but Kamook and the others were a r
rested.
One of the others, Annie Aquash,
slipped away from custody following her
transfer to South Dakota. Her battered
body was later found in Wanblee, on the
Pine Ridge Reservation, after an autopsy
the FBI announced her dead from expo
sure. But a second autopsy requested by
her family found a bullet hole in the back
of her head.
In the trial of the remaining two
defendents, a key prosecution witness
has withdrawn much of his testimony
after admitting he was secretly coached
by government prosecutors on what to
say in court.
A different A IM
Despite the arrests, convictions and
deaths. A IM supporters insist that the
movement continues to flourish. They
point with pride to its involvement with
the recent International Treaty Confer
ence, which drew thousands of Native
Americans as well as representatives of
revolutionary groups from Rhodesia, the
Middle East and Puerto Rico. There
are also ongoing projects such as A IM
"survival schools” for Indian children,
two of which recently received $200,000
government grants.
"A IM will be the liberation organiza
tion of our people for the next 20
years,” claims Jimmy Durham of the
International Indian Treaty Council.
leaders and supporters agree, how
ever. that the A IM that has survived is
different from the A IM of 1968, or even
the A IM of Wounded Knee. It has to a
large extent forsaken its “vanguard"
role and purposefully integrated itself
into traditional tribal structures.
Its members are no longer outside
activists from the cities, but are more
often drawn from the broad spectrum of
traditional tribal members on each re
servation. And A IM does not often act
alone, but as part of tribal organizations
like the Lakota Treaty Council on Pine
Ridge Reservation that have taken the
lead in the Native Americans' major
fight: the restoration of treaty rights
and sovereignty.
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I-aurie Shields, national coordinator of
Alliance for Displaced Homemakers, will
speak at a brown bag luncheor at the
Portland YW CA at noon. Friday, June
25th. She will visit Portland to encourage
support for Oregon displaced homemaker
centers similar to those established by
the California legislature.
According to Sh ield s, "D isplaced
homemakers are wives and mothers who
gave up economic independence to take
care of our families."
T h e s e w o m en (u s u a lly 40 to 64)
through death or divorce lose the finan
cial support of their partner after years of
caring for home and family. They are
ineligible for unemployment benefits and
do not have marketable skills. Because
their children are grown, they cannot
receive Aid to Families with Dependent
Children. They may not be old enough to
receive Social Security or may not have
been married the tw enty years necessary
to receive benefits from their husband's
employment.
The centers would use skills developed
through caring for a family in training as
resource persons and peer counselors for
other older persons seeking assistance
with health, housing, employment and
other problems. The effort would not
compete with young persons in an al
ready strained job market, but would use
existing skills to meet community needs.
A lliance for D isplaced H om em akers
developed from Jobs for Older Women.
Working with the National Organization
for Women Task Force on Older Women,
the A llia n c e was in s tru m e n ta l in the
creation of the California centers.
Ms. Shields' appearance is sponsored
by the N.O .W . Task Force on Older Wo
men. the Governor’s Committee on the
Status of Women, Oregon Council for
Women's Equality, Y W C A and the De
partm ent of Continuing Education.
rhetoric, emphasizing instead its adher
ence to traditional Indian spiritual val
ues. Its activities will concentrate more
on local projects such as its survival
schools, food and cattle ranching coop
eratives, and supporting traditional tri
ba) leadership on the reservation.
Says Dennis Banks: "If there was to be
a doctrine, it would be based on spiri
tual values. A IM has a kind of spiritual
direction that this country needs. 1 don't
see A IM perishing. You can't bury a
spiritual movement.”
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traditionals.
Rather than looking to increased rev
enues as the key answer to tribal
problems, Banks worries about the im
pact of the economic rules learned from
white America. "The greatest danger
comes from the economic system. We
must resist economic temptation. The
real problem is the rape of mother
earth."
Thus A IM will probably move more
and more away from confrontational
politics and tone down its more militant
In this process A IM has gradually
developed a philosophy and strategy that
more closely accords with the aspira
tions of the "traditional»" on the reser
vation. Tribal languages, religions and
cultures - not political philosophies de
rived from the white world -• provide an
identity for the movement.
A IM leaders like Dennis Banks, for
example, now f*shew the potential eco
nomic benefits of developing natural
resources on Indian lands where such
actions conflict with the beliefs of the
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