American Indian Movement

AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT. Resistance by American Indians had been localized and diffuse until the early 1960s, when struggles over fishing and hunting rights took place in Oklahoma, the Northwest, and other places in Indian country. At that time a new organization called the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was formed, primarily by disenchanted children of the tribal chairmen who functioned as colonial puppets of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. NIYC was the first modern pan-Indian organization not controlled by the United States. The only other significant organization at this time was the Native American Church, whose membership was made up of traditional Indians, many of whom were spiritual leaders of their nations. These groups were limited in their potential, NIYC because of its essentially elitist base, and the Native American Church because of the isolation of its members.

In 1968 Indians who often shared a history of prison and urban poverty formed the American Indian Movement (AIM) to fight for the rights of the Indian community in Minneapolis. The goals of AIM were to combat police brutality and improve opportunities for Indian people. The early leaders were Clyde Bellecourt and Dennis Banks. In 1969 AIM participated in the occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, and by 1970 AIM had a national reputation among Indians. Most of its membership was composed of younger, alienated, urban Indians, unlike the college-educated NIYC members or the traditionals of the Native American Church. AIM’s militant style, its willingness to go anywhere to support Indians in struggle, and the desperate conditions on reservations and in urban Indian communities made AIM attractive to a new generation of activists. Russell Means, Carter Camp, and John Trudell became leaders during this time.

With the “Trail of Broken Treaties” in 1972, a national caravan focusing on treaty rights that ended with the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., AIM became a force to be reckoned with. The U.S. government negotiated an agreement to end the occupation. Documents obtained by AIM during the occupation and later released showed widespread corruption and mismanagement within the BIA.

A year later at the village of Wounded Knee AIM seized worldwide attention when it supported traditional Oglala Sioux residents of Pine Ridge in their struggle against the dictatorial rule of the BIA-supported tribal chairman, Dick Wilson. During the seventy-one day siege Phantom jets, armored personnel carriers, federal marshals, and units from the Eighty-second Airborne Division were arrayed against Indians armed with shotguns and .22s, and the entire operation was directed from the basement of the Nixon White House.
AIM sponsored a conference on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the summer of 1974 that drew thousands of Indians and established the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) to work for international recognition of Indian treaty rights. By the end of that year the IITC had an office across the street from the United Nations and was pursuing support among Third World and nonaligned countries much as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had done a decade earlier.

In the years following Wounded Knee AIM organized in Indian communities throughout North America, ran survival schools where political economy was one of the subjects, and held conferences that featured speakers from the African National Congress and Zimbabwe African National Union. Despite these achievements, AIM never coalesced into a strong national organization.

Even at its height of popularity it remained a movement with no formal membership, accountability by its leaders, or clear political agenda. Wounded Knee earned AIM the support of perhaps most Indians in the United States, but the cost was high, as dozens of activists faced trial in Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Cedar Rapids, and Saint Paul over a two-year period. The trials drained most of the movement’s resources and placed AIM in a defensive position.

At the same time repression against AIM increased, with activists facing harassment, surveillance, and frame-ups. An aide to AIM leader Dennis Banks whose title was director of security was revealed as an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a development that was indicative of the level of government infiltration AIM experienced. Political contradictions increased during this time as well, as some leaders adopted a spiritualist approach and denounced alliances with US progressives, and others moderated their views and worked within tribal governments. Since the late 1970s AIM divided into two factions, the Autonomous Chapters of the American Indian Movement and the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council, headed by Clyde Bellecourt. Emphasizing mainly spirituality and sovereignty, AIM nevertheless inspired protesters against the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis who flew AIM flags and banners.

Banks, Dennis and Richard Erdoes. Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the American Indian Movement. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.

Johnson, Troy R. Red Power: The Native American Civil Rights Movement. New York: Chelsea House, 2007.

Matthiessen, Peter. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. New York: Viking, 1983.

Means, Russell. Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

Ortiz, Roxanne Dunbar. The Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America. San Francisco: American Indian Treaty Council Information Center/Moon Books, 1977.

Smith, Paul Chaat, and Robert Allen Warrior. Like a Hurricane. New York: New Press, 1996.

Website: American Indian Movement Interpretive Center. Minneapolis, Minnesota. http://www.aim-ic.org