Analysis of American Indian Movement - Research Paper Example

American Indian Movement Introduction The aim of this research paper is to discuss the American Indian Movement (AIM), a Native American Civil rights organization in the United States that was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the summer of 1968. It gives a brief history of AIM from the time when it was founded to the present. This organization started with 200 people against U.S. government’s discrimination policies toward the Indians. The paper shows the Movement’s aims or goals indicating that AIM was formed majorly to speak out about Indian injustices by the American government. At the beginning, some leaders such as Dennis Banks, Russell Means, Mary Jane Wilson, Eddie Benton-Banai, John Trudell, Carter Camp, Anna Mae Aquash, Leonard Peltier, Lehman Brightman, Richard Oakes and Vernon Belle-court, among others organized its protest activities and they expressed their opinions in various events and activities. Moreover, although they used different tactics depending on sites and times, the tactics tended to become more aggressive until the middle of the 1980s. Some of their undertakings or protest activities included the 1972 occupation of Gordon, the Wounded Knee occupation of 1973, Oglala Firefight of 1975, the Longest Walk of 1978, the occupation of Black Hills in 1981 and the Longest Walk 2 of 2008 among others. However, their aggressive tactics sometimes caused undesirable results such as the death, arrest and jailing of many people. Some of the positive results of these tactics include bringing solidarity among Indians, humanizing them and restoring them to their traditional cultural backgrounds. It is important to note that the movement would have had better results if it used more peaceful tactics. The movement would also improve if it developed an alternative economic model, devised methods to curb ethnicity, maintained and deepened its orientation that once assured it a wide impact, among others. General background of AIM The American Indian Movement is a Red Power organization that started out of a concern for the treatment of American Indians. Red Power is a phrase that commonly expressed an increasing consciousness of all Indian identity and at the front position of this movement was AIM (Theredsun, 2008). The US government had instituted programs that led to displacement of urban American Indians. This in turn led to the establishment of the Movement aimed at helping the victims of displacement. The fact that the Movement spoke out about Indian injustices from the beginning made it very high profile through the years. Afterward, the movement’s efforts broadened to cater for Indians’ legal rights and traditional culture protection demands, autonomy in managing their economy and tribal areas and illegally seized lands reinstatement. The American Indian Movement is about things never being the same. Many respect the movement while some hate it. However, the movement is never ignored. It has enhanced the sovereignty of Indians by raising questions in the minds of Indians and the entire society. The movement engaged in protest activities, some of which involved violence and got high publication. To start with, AIM is a spiritual movement, then a religious rebirth and lastly the rebirth of pride and grandeur or self-respect of a people. AIM intended to quicken Indian people for a spirituality renewal that would impart them with the strength of resolve required to reverse the disastrous policies of Canada, the United States and other South and Central American colonialist governments. AIM strongly believes in the unity and deep spirituality of all Indian people. It also aimed at encouraging Native Americans’ self-government and international recognition of treaty rights (Kills, 1973). Miner explains that the Movement began taking form during the summer of 1968 when 200 people from the Indian community attended a meeting called by a group of activists of Native American community. Since discrimination and decades of federal Indian policy frustrated them, these people met to take control over their own destiny and to converse about the critical issues that restrained them. Aim emanated from that ferment and determination. AIM surfaced in response to brutality committed against urban Indians by police in the Twin Cities. At the outset, the members considered themselves as a coalition of concerned Indian American. Afterward, two Indian women who were elders came up with a suggestion of the name AIM following the organization leaders’ aim of taking action on various critical issues in order to rectify former prejudice against Indians. The leaders could organize Indian patrols in order to inspect police actions. The patrols made sure that police did not abuse Indians who they arrested. Goals of AIM AIM’s goals are fostering a sense of solidarity and unity among First Nation groups and American Indians in Canada and the United States respectively, defending Native people against further depredations by the white population and government. Another goal is enforcing treaty rights that had been ignored up until the 1970s when AIM got into full action and protest happened in the most unexpected places (Deloria, 2003). Wilson sums up AIM”s ultimate goal as striving for existence of American Indians as a people and shaking the bonds of oppression so that the American Indians may return to their culture as free men. In other words, the aim of the American Indian Movement was to help the Native American people throughout the United States to understand their traditions and to live the traditional way. It was also to prompt the adults to teach the traditions to their young ones. The movement also aimed at helping the Native American people with anything that they could manage to help them with in their community. The movement’s founders had a supportive mind as they established it. Generally, the members organized to struggle for their freedom against oppression, hatred and people in power (Messerschmidt & Kunstler, 1983). The agenda of the movement emphasized all tribes’ and Indians’ rights and therefore combined to legitimize and empower “supratribal Indianness” as an identity, which to them was a basis of activism and a source of pride. The red power therefore bolstered and validated another American Indian ethnicity layer whose boundary was larger than a tribal one (Nagel, 1997). Leaders of AIM Among AIM’s national leaders were Mary Jane Wilson and Eddie Benton-Banai who were actively involved in the early formation of the movement. There was also Russell Means who fought for Indian rights. He was the first national director of American Indian Movement and he has remained active in the movement. In 1964, he was among the AIM-led Indian activists who occupied San Francisco's Alcatraz Island that lasted for 19 months. In the 1868 Laramie treaty, lands were issued to the Lakota. Means therefore helped lead the movement in attempts to take over Wounded Knee and regain these lands. This takeover made Means eminent in American homes and people regarded him as the most prominent and perceptible America Indian. Together with his wife, Means also built the Treaty Total Immersion School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The school instills children with the pride and confidence to face any challenge through total immersion in the Lakota way of life. Means was also an actor and continued to be politically vigorous. In 2002, he ran for president of the Oglala Sioux tribe and for Governor of New Mexico (Chew, 2001). Other leaders are John Trudell who served as AIM’s national chairperson from 1974 to 1979, Lehman Brightman, who became director of Native American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, Leonard Peltier, Carter Camp, Anna Mae Aquash and Richard Oakes. In addition is a school administrator by the name Eddie Benton Benay, who has worked in Lac Courte Oreilles at his native home and at the Little Red schoolhouse in Minneapolis and Bellecourt. He was the director of the Peace Maker Center in Minneapolis. Bellecourt administers U.S. Department of Labor job-development grants (karnowski, 2007). The leaders protested against the disgusting slum housing, racial discrimination and high redundancy. They also fought for the rights of urban Indians who suffered illness and poverty and for treaty rights as well as the repossession of tribal land. In 1971, they opened a school, which they named Heart of the Earth Survival School for grades K to 12. They also mounted the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, D.C. in 1972, taking over the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This was in protest of BIA’s policies. They demanded for their reform. AIM leaders' revolutionary fervor drew the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s and the Central Intelligence Agency’s attention and they set out to crush the American Indian movement (Minesota Historical Society, 2009). Tactics of AIM To improve Native people’s conditions, AIM started culturally oriented schools for Indian youths including the American Indian Opportunities and Industrialization Center, which is one of the largest Indian job training programs, KILI radio, AIM StreetMedics, Indian Legal Rights Centers Little Earth Housing, International Indian Treaty Council and Heart of The Earth School. This was in response to an increased dropout rate of the junior high-level youths in public schools (Chew, 2001). Following the arrival of more American Indians in the Twin Cities, the movement established an Indian elders program where it provided the elders with food and provisional asylum. The widespread frustration among Indians over the urban conditions resulting from relocation of many Indians to cities made more Indians to join the fight for their justice. Consequently, AIM became a national organization. At the political level, these activists conducted a series of public protests with an aim of bring attention to issues affecting the American Indians. They began by participating in the nineteen-month occupation of Alcatraz in 1969. On 4 July 1971, they protested at Mount Rushmore and on Thanksgiving Day of the same year, they protested at the Mayflower replica at Plymouth, Massachusetts. In addition, in response to the murder of Raymond Yellow Thunder, they protested in Gordon, Nebraska, on February 1972. In November 1972, the members of the movement occupied the building containing the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. They also initiated the countrywide Longest Walk 1978 that ended in Washington D.C. Local chapters in the movement took over buildings in states such as California and Wisconsin among other. From the beginning, AIM has spearheaded protests advocating inspired renewal of culture, interests of indigenous American, monitoring of police activities and establishment of coordinated programs of employment in cities and in rural communities in all States of America. The movement has in addition given support to other indigenous interests outside the States. (i) Aggressive Tactics AIM believed that advocates for Indian interests who had worked within the American political system had been ineffective. To them, the political system refused to pay attention to Indians’ interests. Therefore, at its founding, the leadership of the movement took to a more aggressive course to ensure that the governing system heard their voices. They adopted tactics that they premised on their belief that Indian activists failed to succeed. Ever since AIM’s founding, Indian advocacy had been passive, consisting of the characteristic lobbying effort with the congress together with the state legislatures (Clifton, 1994). One of the activities that made national attention on AIM peak was the movement members’ ten-week occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in February 25, 1973. AIM leader, Russell Means and his supporters took over the small Indian community of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. They took over the trading post and the church at Wounded Knee. This was in protest of Wounded Knee’s allegedly corrupt government. Their complaint was that in 1934, the government had created the tribal councils on reservations as a way of perpetuating paternalistic control over Native American development. AIM also alleged that more than 300 treaties between the Native Americans and the federal governments were broken and therefore demanded for their review (Redhawk, 2002). When the news about the Wounded Knee occupation spread, people from all over the world went to Wounded Knee in support of the cause. Following the setting up of a Wounded Knee’s headquarters communications center in Rapid City, the traditional Lakota people demanded more freedom from the Federal, which led to a civil war between them and the Government supporters. FBI agents were dispatched to remove the AIM occupiers and there followed an intense confrontation. This confrontation led to death of two people, with twelve others wounded and 1200 arrested in the course of the resulting siege between the US government and the American Indian Movement that lasted for 71 days (Winton, 1999). Authorities charged Russell Means and Dennis Banks putting them on trial in a Minnesota court for their actions at Wounded Knee. The authorities also arrested other AIM members, but later released them. A federal judge acquitted Banks and Means following an eight-month trial in 1974. It was the catalyst for Indian uprisings at Chiapas, Mexico, Canada and Oka. It drew worldwide attention to the plight of American Indians (Stern, 2002). The events at Wounded Knee mounted tensions that stimulated a second event between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Indian activists. This was the Oglala Firefight and it took place on 26 June 1975. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved with observation of all major Indian protests and worked to undermine such protests and to challenge AIM leaders. The firefight began in South Dakota at the compound of the Jumping Bull family on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Jimmy Stuntz, a young Native American man and 2 agents of FBI died in the conflict leading to a nationwide effort by FBI to find the killer. Eventually, Leonard Peltier was convicted of the crime and was imprisoned at Leavenworth, Kansas despite international calls for his release and protests that he did not receive a fair trial. In another proceeding, the court exonerated two members on the movement who were alleged partners in crime. The occupation of Gordon, Nebraska in 1972 was another landmark victory that considerably raised the stature of AIM among American Indians. This occupation eventually forced the authorities to bring the murderers of Lakota Raymond Yellow Thunder to justice. During the year of 1978, after many activities of the American Indian Movement had subdued, the Longest Walk, one of the AIM's famous marches, took place. This was a 3,600-mile walk initiative led by Dennis Banks and Russell Means. Its intention was to protest at the government’s non-actions in Indian issues. The 95th US congress launched eleven new legislative bills. AIM therefore decided to collect enough aid and support to impede the suggested legislation and eliminate the United States government with Native American treaty meant to protect the pieces of Native sovereignty that remained. The Longest Walk marched into Washington D.C. from the West Coast on July 15, 1978. Several supporters including Ted Kennedy who was an American Senator, Marlon Brando who was an actor and Mohammed Ali, an American boxer marched alongside them. This Walk led to the defeat of the eleven legislative bills thus protecting the remaining Treaty rights that the Native Americans possessed. This defeat also resulted to the passing of the American Indian’s religious freedom act. In April 2003, AIM chapters met at a conference with the founder of the center for the support and protection of Indian religions and indigenous traditions to discuss plans to maintain and protect the religious rights of the Native American. In June of the same year, Canadian and American tribes joined internationally to pass the war declaration against those who exploited Lakota Spirituality. AIM and the aforementioned support center joined forces and declared war against pan-plastic Indians. They had a feeling that those who attracted and entertained tourists by impersonating them over and above marketing the sales of replicated Native American spiritual objects did not only mock them, but exploited them as well. Currently, the delegates of AIM are in the process of adopting a policy that requires anyone claiming to represent the Native American people in any sort of public forum or venue to have a tribal identification card. They also intended to pass legislature prohibiting false portrayal of the image of a medicine man or woman as well as the sales of replicas of sacred ceremonial objects. In February 2004, the movement marched to Alcatraz from Washington D.C. in support of Leonard Peltier, which gave them more media attention. They felt was that Peltier’s imprisonment was wrong. This march became a symbol of spiritual and political determination for Native Americans. One of the Native American’s controversies that are more recent is the issue of Bear Butte, one of the sacred sites. It is located outside of Sturgis in South Dakota. In summers, people stream from all over the nation to the hill. Recently the City Council of Sturgis granted a liquor license to an individual who wanted to build a campground with music and alcohol, for the Sturgis rally. Native Americans from all over protested against this. Treaty Rights was and is always going to be an issue with Native Americans. Most of the treaties made between the US government and Indian tribes have been broken. This issue is still ongoing, with some people still working on the treaty rights. In addition, land disputes have always be an issue. (ii)Peaceful Tactics The Longest Walk 2, an 8,000-mile walk reached Washington D.C. on February 11, 2008. It started from the San Francisco Bay area for rights of Native Americans and its aims were stopping global warming and protection of the environment. This walk, which consisted of over a hundred nations of Native American and an international group, crossed twenty-six states on two different routes and took approximately six months. On their way to Washington D.C., the walkers collected more than eight thousand bags of garbage. They then submitted a thirty-page manifesto known as the manifesto of change and a list of demands that included mitigation for climate change, plans for environment sustenance and the protection of sacred sites and items that were critical to health sovereignty of Native American. The walk also acted as a commemoration of the original Longest Walk’s 30th anniversary. Other activities that AIM got involved in include opposing the use of indigenous caricatures as lucky charm for sports teams like the Chicago Blackhawks, Washington Redskins, the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians. The movement has also organized protests at Super Bowl and World Series games involving the mentioned teams. In these games, protesters hold signs with slogans conveying the message that being Indian is not a character you can play or that Indians are people and not mascots. Previously in the mascot debate, these requests were ignored. However, they are now receiving attention. In 1981, AIM established a camp in the Black Hills by Lake Victoria as a cultural place for Native people. Many people had it as their home. They named it after the victim of the murder in his honor. Hare brothers had murdered the victim. In December 2008, Russell Means and a Lakota Sioux delegation delivered a pronouncement of succession from the US to the State Department. They alluded to the loss of immeasurable amounts of territory initially awarded in those treaties and other many treaties that the U.S. government had failed to honor in the past. They made public their intentions to form a separate nation within the US, which they referred to as the Republic of Lakotah. AIM also supported consultations that resulted in the international treaty conference with the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland in 1977 (Banks, 2005). To present its own undistorted message to the American public, AIM used the American press and media. This was through ensuring coverage of any given event they of their choice for their newspaper prints or for broadcast through radio or television station. News outlets would also interview AIM spokespersons in order to receive its message. Rather than relying on traditional lobbying efforts with the state legislature, AIM sought out the American public directly to ensure that it got the movement’s message. Always, the movement ran after any event that would result in its publicity. Sound bites such as the movement’s song were frequently on camera and people quickly associated them with the movement. These events enhanced publication of AIM making it more conspicuous in order to have a good chance to highlight its credence that the Indian people’s rights had eroded (Heppler, 2008). Indian activism spread all over North America with other protest and coups. These events were of great significance because they focused worldwide attention to the deprivation and injustices that American Indians faced. Wittstock explains that philosophy of self-determination forms the base upon which the movement is built. He further elucidates that this form of philosophy have its roots deep into culture, language, history and traditional spirituality. The movement also establishes partnerships to attend to people’s common needs and strongly holds to its vision, which is still clear and unwavering, of ensuring the accomplishment of treaties that were made with the United States. However, this has not always been an easy path. AIM's strength and stamina have been tested frequently. So far, no one has succeeded in destroying the strength and will of the movement’s solidarity. It has developed chapters in many other cities, Indian Nations and rural areas. Globally, the movement has 79 chapters with eight of them being in Canada. Its on and off reservations continued growth is evident in its development of ties with aboriginal organizations in Australia (Banks, 2005). AIM still exists, although as a network of independent chapters, which are sometimes disconnected. Continuously, the movement urges everyone to stay strong spiritually and to remember always that the movement is greater than the faults or accomplishments of its leaders. Inherent in the spiritual heart of AIM is the knowledge that the work proceeds because the need proceeds. Indian people live on Earth with the clear understanding that except themselves, no one from the outside will assure the coming generations and that no person among them can do it all for them. They believe that self-determination is and must be the objective of all work and that members’ solidarity and defense must receive the first priority. Impacts on societies The Movement has had some considerable impacts on American Indians as well as on American politics. The government’s responses were a series of methods such as mass arrests, assassinations, false imprisonments, spurious trials and denial of information. During the past thirty years, AIM has been in the centre of organization of communities and creation of opportunities for people all over Canada and America. It has repeatedly brought triumphant suit against the federal government for the protection of the Native nations’ rights guaranteed in the Constitution of the States of America, sovereignty, laws and treaties. Nonetheless, the government did not grant most of the demands that the Movement made. Its activities led to many people being convicted of crimes and having to serve jail time. It also brought a sense of solidarity among the natives, humanized them and restored them to their traditions cultural backgrounds. It softened the government on the way it treated the Indian Americans thereby protecting the remaining Treaty rights of Native Americans. In addition, it brought a finely tuned awareness of Native Americans thereby making them value and take pride in their heritage and culture. It has also played a significant role in the expansion of democracy and enhancing recognition of the equality of Indians without necessarily sacrificing their identity. AIM is unfaltering in confronting the government together with the corporate forces, which seek to marginalize indigenous people. To date, Indian movements have got to a critical instant in their evolution. Many of the issues such as racism, terrorism, violence, and poverty and drugs abuse among others that the movement has been fighting are still present, though to a lesser degree. Bot explains that so far, a disillusion following a period of hope in the Movements’ democracy has been observed in all Latin America. The Movements are at a risk of disintegrating, receding into themselves or even languish. The absence of an alternative economic model, the traps and dangers of ethnicity, the ambiguities and difficulties of the politics of identity and difference among others confront the Movements. Recommendations Some recommendations that may be helpful in improving the movement are that it should use more peaceful tactics to avoid the recurrence of the negative impacts or undesirable results. In addition, if the Movements could manage to maintain and deepen the orientation that made them their distinctive character and assured them an impact far beyond Latin America frontiers and the Indian sectors, they would escape the threats of bureaucratization, populist and communitarian temptation, institutionalization and dissolution in the market. In other words, the capacity to link demands of cultural, civic, political and social rights without confusing the distinction between the Movements would help them escape the aforementioned threats. The movement will also pursue and broaden their historic task only if they succeed in associating other democratic forces to their efforts (Bot, 2005). Other civil right movements Other civil right movements used peaceful tactic and obtained successfully results. For example, many Native American rights activists created groups such as the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, Native American Traditions Ideals Values Educational Society, Women of All Red Nations and League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations. All these groups fight for common ideologies of equality and respect for Native Americans despite variations in their specific goals (Churchill, 2007). Conclusion The American Indian Movement was and still is a very significant movement. As Wittstock explains, the organization has grown over the years and has continued to serve the community from a base of Indian culture. The American boarding schools, U.S. policies and other efforts to quench Indian secular and spiritual life weakened culture in most Indian communities before 1968. However, most of the American Indians presently cannot remember a moment that they were without culture. This great resurgence has led to restoration of spiritual elders and leaders, who hold much wisdom and highly regard history; to the positions they held in the past. The movement leaders, who did not only recognize a cause but worked on it as well, are now considered as real heroes and true warriors. Through them, American history changed forever. If the leaders would use more peaceful tactics, they would achieve more. References Banks, D., Erdoes, R. (2005): Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 080613691X, 9780806136912 Bot, Y.L (2005): Indian Movements in Latin America: A Historical Reversal. Retrieved May 7, 2009 from http://www.warwick.ac.uk/CRER/events/YvonLeBotpaper.pdf. Chew, R. (2001): Russell Means: American Indian Leader Born: November 10, 1939. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/means.html Churchill, W. (2007): The Covert War against Native Americans. Retrieved May 7, 2009 from http://sisis.nativeweb.org/sov/covert.html Clifton, J.A. (1994): The invented Indian: cultural fictions and government policies. Trenton: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1560007451, 9781560007456 Karnowski S. (2007): AIM leader Vernon Bellecourt dies in Minneapolis. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://plainsfeminist.blogspot.com/2007/10/american-indian-movement-leader-dies.html Kills, B. (1973): American Indian Movement Arizona Chapter. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://www.geocities.com/aim_arizona_chapter/ Miner, M. (2002): The American Indian Movement. Retrieved May 7, 2009 from http://moh.tie.net/content/docs/AIM.pdf Messerschmidt, J.W., Kunstler, W.M. (1983): The trial of Leonard Peltier. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 089608163X, 9780896081635 Minesota Historical Society. (2009): American Indian Movement (AIM). Retrieved May 7, 2009 from http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/93aim.html Nagel, J. (1997): American Indian ethnic renewal: Red power and the resurgence of identity and culture. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195120639, 9780195120639 Redhawk, W. (2002): Siege at Wounded Knee 1973. Retrieved May 7, 2009 from http://siouxme.com/lodge/aim_73.html Stern, K.S. (2002): Loud Hawk: the United States versus the American Indian Movement. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806134399, 9780806134390 Theredsun, (2008): American Indian Movement T-Shirt. Retrieved May 7, 2009 from http://www.zazzle.com/american_indian_movement_tshirt-235639805672899618 Winton, B. (1999): Native Peoples Magazine: Alcatraz, Indian Land. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://siouxme.com/lodge/alcatraz_np.html Wittstock, L.W., Salinas, E.J (1999): A Brief History of the American Indian Movement. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/history.html Read More