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Gladys Bissonette

1 Revolutionary Voices of Dissent 1970s Focused Research
Gladys Bissonette was an Oglala Lakota elder and a powerful voice in the American Indian Movement (AIM), often referred to as “the brave-hearted woman of Wounded Knee.” She was a leader who preserved traditional knowledge and language in the face of ongoing colonization. Although Bissonette is not pictured in the mural, her importance to Wounded Knee and AIM cannot be understated.

During the 1970s in the Pine Ridge Reservation political violence and repression grew under Tribal Chairman Dick Wilson. Wilson’s administration, backed by a paramilitary group known as the “Goon Squad,” targeted traditional Lakota people and AIM supporters, creating a climate of fear and injustice.

In February 1973, Bissonette was one of the key speakers at a pivotal meeting at Calico Hall, where residents gathered to discuss how to respond to the violence and corruption. Her impassioned 20-minute speech called on AIM to support the people of Pine Ridge, declaring, “For many years we have not fought any kind of war, we have not fought any kind of battle, and we have forgotten how to fight.” (Smith, 198). Her words helped galvanize the decision to occupy Wounded Knee.

During the 71-day occupation, Bissonette served as a political negotiator and worked in the health clinic established by the occupiers. She fiercely advocated for the recognition of treaty rights and for federal investigations into the abuses on Pine Ridge. Of the occupation Bissonette has reflected: “Any militancy on our part has been provoked by the United States. Anything of violence shows the people of the world that the United States Government has made these laws and not lived up to them. They broke all of them since 1868” (Dunbar-Ortiz, 176).

Bissonette’s legacy lives on, and today she is known as one of the “grandmothers of AIM.”


Sources:
Brim, Sand. “Siege at Wounded Knee 50 Years Later: the Fight for Self-Determination Continues.” CounterPunch, Mar. 10, 2023, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/10/wounded-knee-50-years-later-the-fight-for-self-determination-continues/
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, ed. The Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013. Originally published 1977. Page 176.
Manygoats, Raven. Native American Women in the American Indian Movement. 28 Apr. 2019, Otterbein University, Undergraduate Distinction Paper. Digital Commons @ Otterbein, https://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/stu_dist/68/
Smith, Paul Chaat, and Robert Allen Warrior. Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. New York: New Press, 1996.
Zotigh, Dennis. “A Return to the Wounded Knee Occupation, 50 Years Later.” Smithsonian Magazine, Feb. 27, 2023,
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-american-indian/2023/02/27/a-return-to-the-knee-occupation-fifty-years-later/

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