"ojibwa warrior: dennis banks and the rise of the american indian movement"

Dennis Banksand the Rise of the American Indian Movement

by Dennis Banks and Richard Erdoes

Powerpoint by Ashley Kerswill

Boozhoo Hello

Naawakamig izhinikaazo.

His name is ‘at the center of the universe’

Birth and Childhood

• Born April 12, 1937 — Federal Dam, Leech Lake rez.

• Named Naawakamig (Nowa-Cumig) by his grandfather (Drumbeater)

• Tapped maple trees, harvested wild rice.

“The old boarding schools that Indian kids were forcibly taken to were concentration camps for children where we were forbidden to speak our language and were beaten if we prayed to our Native creator.”

- Dennis Banks (24)

Boarding School

• Taken at five years old, 250mi away.

• Went to Pipestone and Wahpeton

• Did not see family for over eleven years.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avXlNSaHKEg#t=9m20s - through 9:41

• “Im now writing "The Letters".Of my boarding school days. The u.s.gov't withheld letters my mom wrote to me.65yrslaterIfindm” – Dennis Banks about the book he is writing.

“I could speak some Chippewa when I arrived at Pipestone, but after nine years in that place I forgot it because we were forbidden to speak our native languages. Our teachers only allowed us to speak English”

- (Banks 28)

Military Life

• Joined Military

• Deployed to Japan

• Married a Japanese woman, named Machiko, who he had a daughter with. The military did not approve of this marriage.

• Dennis Banks was court marshaled back to the U.S. He hasn’t seen Machiko or their daughter since.

"Things won't ever be the same again — and that's what the American Indian Movement is about... Our business is hope”

- Birgil Kills Straight, Lakota (Banks 58)

"Things won't ever be the same again — and that's what the American Indian Movement is about... Our business is hope”

- Birgil Kills Straight, Lakota (Banks 58)

Founding of AIM

• Thought of an Indian movement while in prison, where he was sentenced for stealing 16 bags of groceries for his family.

• Studied Indian rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, marches, and protests while in prison.

• By 1973 there were 71 U.S. chapters of AIM and 8 Canadian chapters of AIM.

• Why was AIM chosen as their name? (next slide)

“ ‘You always aim to do this and to do that. Why don’t we just call ourselves “AIM”?’ Clyde, George, and I came up with a number of names that had the word ‘movement’ in them. We finally settled on “American Indian Movement.”

- Banks 63

“People are fighting in the streets of Chicago…They’re fighting in the streets of Alabama to change the situation for the blacks…What the hell are we going to do? Are we going to sit here in Minnesota and not do a goddamn thing? Are we going to go on for another two hundred years, or even another five, the way we are without doing something for our Indian people?”

- Dennis Banks (Banks 62)

Founding of AIM

• First 'AIM' meeting July 28, 1968 in the basement of a rundown church. The turnout was bigger than expected, almost 200 showed up. 40-50 were expected.

Aim’s Spiritual Leader

• He searched for Eddie Benton-Banai, Ojibwa, but no one knew where he was.

• Banks was pointed in the direction Henry Crow Dog, Lakota, a 3rd generation medicine man. Henry Crow Dog made Banks his first sweat lodge.

• Leonard Crow Dog, Henry Crow Dog’s son, became AIM’s spiritual leader.

“As long as American Indians were polite and soft-spoken, and acted with decorum, they got nowhere…Clyde [Bellecourt] and I decided that in order to get anywhere AIM had to be confrontational—confrontational but not violent. AIM walks with the Canupa—the sacred pipe of peace. If we were to put the pipe away and only carry the gun, our movement would come to nothing.”

- (Banks 105)

Alcatraz/ Rushmore

• Banks was at Alcatraz for a couple of days during the Indian occupation of the island in 1969.

• AIM helped occupy Mt. Rushmore in 1970.

“The dark agony of a silent man was suddenly transformed into an issue an entire nation must face.”

- The Nishnawbe News (Banks 114)

AIM’s First Case

• Raymond Yellow Thunder, Lakota, was beaten to death by white people “just for the fun of it”

• The incident happened on Valentine’s Day 1972

• AIM decided to get justice for Yellow Thunder no matter what it took at an AIM conference in Omaha, NE.

• The brothers who started the fight served a combined eight years in jail.

• “Without AIM, they would have gone free without serving a single day.” (Banks 118)

Washington D.C.

• Many natives went on caravans to Washington D.C.

• Each caravan was headed by medicine man who held a sacred pipe and drum.

• They made it to Washington D.C. on November 2, 1972 and had to stay in a dirty, rat-infested church basement.

• They ended up occupying the BIA building in Washington D.C.

Washington D.C.

• They went on the journey to Washington D.C. to get recognition for treaties government had broken.

• The journey is known as “Trail of Broken Treaties” which became a “Trail of Broken Promises”

The Gunsmoke Flavor

• AIM had a stand at Custer (which was then known as “The Town With The Gunsmoke Flavor”)

• February 6, 1973

• There was a lot of violence.

• “Troopers dragged a beautiful young girl by her feet through the snow and, in the process, ripped her blouse off so that above the waist she wore nothing except her bra.” (Banks 155).

Wounded Knee II

Wounded Knee II

• Began February 27, 1973

• Local people were unable to do anything.

• Dicky Wilson and his GOONs, the so-called “Guardians of the Oglala Sioux” bullied locals into not practicing traditional ways.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWriOAZctPQ#t=6m50s - through 8:49

Wounded Knee II

• Dicky Wilson, his goons, the FBI surrounded perimeter with many of high-caliber, high-powered weapons.

• People inside the perimeter had to fire blanks to intimidate the people outside the perimeter, because they didn’t have enough weapons.

• “Out there the Feds have some heavy weapons and enough ammunition to kill every Indian in South Dakota ten times over”. (Banks 166).

“Among us were people from many tribes: Navajo, Ojibwa, Sac and Fox, Potawatomi, Iroquois, Lumbee, Shinnecock, Pueblo, Kiowa, Comanche, Ponca, and several more, including tribes from the north-west. About 65 percent of the people present were local Lakotas…Even some non-Indians had come to help us—Chicano brothers, young white men and women from the ‘60s counterculture, and a white doctor with a few nurses. We welcomed them all.”

- (Banks 165)

Wounded Knee II

• March 3, Dicky Wilson made his own call to arms and called the occupation of Wounded Knee a move by Communists.

• March 3, reporters denied access.

• March 4, telephone lines cut.

• March 8, fire from the Government started.

Independent Oglala Nation

• Declaration of an Independent Oglala Nation

• Excerpt page 179-180 (next slide)

• “The Oglalas demanded the same recognition the United States accorded countries such as France or Italy, and the asked for the same from the United Nations” (Banks 181)

• Passports were issued to all within the perimeter and visas were issued to press and “foreigners”.

“LET IT BE KNOWN, MARCH 11, 1973 THAT THE OGLALA PEOPLE

WILL REVIVE THE TREATY OF 1868, AND THATIT WILL BE THE BASIS FOR ALL NEGOTIATIONS.

Let the declaration be made that we are a sovereign nation by the Treaty of 1868. We intend to send a delegation to the United Nations.

We want to abolish the Tribal Government under the Indian Reorganization Act. Wounded Knee will be a corporate state under the Independent Oglala Nation.

In proclaiming the Independent Oglala Nation, the first nation to be called for support is the Six Nation Confederacy (The Iroquois League). We request that the Confederacy send emissaries to this newly proclaimed nation.”

- (Banks 179-180)

“By March 30, we were down to two meals a day. A week later it was one meal a day. And then a week after that, we had to get by with one meal every other day with a bowl of thin soup in between. On the day the occupation ended, the only food left was a forty-pound bag of dry pinto beans.”

- (Banks 188)

Wounded Knee II

• “The stand down at Wounded Knee took place on Friday, May 8, 1973.” (Banks 209).

• The whole ordeal lasted more than two months.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcFWdblY5ac#t=7m45s - through 9:29

Life after The Knee

• Fled to Canada after Wounded Knee II.

• After his return, him and Means were put on trial. Judge Nichol didn’t like them at first but, after discovering FBI’s cover-ups and corruptness, he sided with them. Trial ended in September of 1973.

• In early 1974, commissioned by FBI to help getting Patty Hearst back from the Symbionese Liberation Army.

“From 1972 to 1976, Pine Ridge reservation was a killing field….More than three hundred people are reported to have met a violent end in this place of fear and suppression…Over 90 percent of the killings and other violent crimes were never investigated.”

- (Banks 294)

“The tribal president had a crude poster on the wall of his office that stated, ‘one of Russell Means’ braids cut off—five dollars, two braids—ten dollars, Russell Means’ whole head pickled—one hundred dollars.”

- (Banks 285).

“Dick Wilson had finally been defeated. He lost his bid for a third term as tribal chairman by a three-to-one margin. The winner was a former BIA superintendent and longtime Wilson opponent, Al Trimble. Unfortunately, Wilson had two months left before he had to relinquish his office, during which time he wielded absolute power.”

- (Banks 288)

Kamook

• Kamook is the woman Dennis Banks loved the most.

• She is Lakota.

• Up until 1975 they had had one daughter together, Tashina Wanblee.

Kamook’s Bail

• Dennis Banks escaped the FBI but learned Kamook was in jail and was pregnant with their second child.

• December 30, 1975, Kamook gave birth to Tiopa Maza Win, Iron Door Woman. She was born behind Iron Doors (in jail).

• The People’s Temple, the cult that Jim Jones — who was Choctaw — led to a mass suicide in Guyana, raised Kamook’s bail.

California

• Kamook, Tashina, Tiopa, and him moved to California.

• Dennis Banks became a chancellor at the Dekanawida-Quetzalcoatl University in California.

• Kamook gave birth to their last daughter, Tokala (Kit Fox), in California.

• In 1985, they had their last child, a boy, named Chanupa Washte, meaning Good Sacred Pipe.

Onondaga

• They moved to the Onondaga reservation because he couldn’t be touched by anyone there.

• South Dakota had an extradition against him.

• In September of 1984, his “enforced stay of the Onondaga reservation came to an end.” (Banks 337).

Trial and Prison

• Banks hands himself over to South Dakota.

• He is sentenced to prison in Custer on October 9, 1984.

• He serves one year and two months of sentence.

• While Banks was in prison his 103 year old grandfather died.

“Never give up. That’s how I run my life. And I stay close to nature. During the sugaring time, it is important to recognize that one can’t take all the sap away from the tree. We have to leave enough so that the tree can survive and thrive, otherwise one might make a mistake and take the tree’s life force away. So we must think the Indian way if we are going to survive.”

- Grandpa Bijah (Banks 344)

End of Sentence

• Governor Janklow, who was long time enemies with Banks, let Banks go to his grandfather’s funeral.

• On August 6, 1985, he was granted parole on the condition that he find a job.

“I applied for the positions of drug and alcohol counselor and running coach. I filled out the forms and fired them off. One question on the application asked, ‘What experience do you have as a running coach?’

I put down, ‘I ran from the FBI for eleven years and they never caught up with me.’.”

- (Banks 346).

“Life is like a circleYou walk and walk onlyTo find yourself at thePlace you started from”

- Henry Crow Dog, Lakota (Banks 348)

“Age brings wisdom—sometimes.”- Dennis

Banks(Banks 354)

Elder

• He has “promoted legislation that makes trading in items from Indian graves illegal.” (Banks 348).

• He has organized unsuccessful walks to free LeonardPeltier.

• He fights against teams with Indian mascots.

• He “struggles to keep AIM alive.” (Banks 349).

• On October 10, 1992, Banks’ last child was born. A boy, named Minoh Biqwad, meaning Good Arrow.

• Excerpt 351-352. (next slide)

“One of the sad aspects of being an elder is that one by one, your old friends and comrades in the struggle are no longer here. So many have gone to the spirit world. Old Henry Crow Dog, who prepared for me my first sweat lodge, is gone…Gone, too, is Frank Fools Crow…John Fire Lame Deer…Pete Catches…Phillip Deere…Pedro Bissonette…Buddy Lamont…Oscar Bear Runner…Severt Young Bear…Milo Goings…Louis Bad Wound…Lou Bean…Gladys Bissonette…Mary Gertrude…Nilak Butler…Grandma Cecilia Jumping Bull…Joe Stuntz Kills Right…Finally, I grieve for Annie Mae Aquash.”“But I’d better stop before I break down”

- (Banks 351-352).

“A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons.”

- Cheyenne proverb (Banks 352)

“My mind is crowded with thoughts of those warriors who stood, fought, and died for us. They were brave men. They were brave women. I shall not eulogize their deaths. Instead, I shall draw on their life memories and be strengthened.”

- (Banks 353)

Looking Back

• He attended 25th anniversary, a remembrance, of the stand at Wounded Knee on February 27, 1998.

• He now lives on the Leech Lake reservation and owns a business.

“I thank the American Indian Movement for being strong. AIM will always be strong because it is a spiritual movement. Every day we receive calls of distress, and every day we offer tobacco ceremonies for those in need. Right now this earth, our mother, is in distress. She needs our help. Can we—all of us—respond? I don’t know, but I am convinced that if we don’t respond, we will be in peril and our future will lay in question.”

- (Banks 362)

Aim and It’s Legacy

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A33CZ1AJj3w - through 0:29.

• “People often forget that AIM is not so much a political organization as it is a spiritual one.” (Banks 185).

Miigwetch for taking the time to read/ listen to my presentation

Works Cited

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

• http://twitter.com/DennisBanks/status/8401439833

• http://twitter.com/tashinabanks/statuses/12048176895