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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

1973 Wounded Knee: Russell Means, right, beats the drum at a meeting of the Wounded Knee occupation

Russell Means, right, beats the drum at a meeting of the Wounded Knee occupation on March 10, 1973. A photojournalist who managed to get inside the cordon made a series of images of the stand-off and negotiations. On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, some 200 Sioux Native Americans, led by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), occupy Wounded Knee, the site of the infamous 1890 massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. The AIM members, some of them armed, took 11 residents of the historic Oglala Sioux settlement hostage as local authorities and federal agents descended on the reservation. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had the right to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development. Then, in early 1973, AIM prepared for its dramatic occupation of Wounded Knee. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country’s lowest rates of life expectancy.

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2. 1973 Wounded Knee: AIM activists preparing for a purification ceremony
4. 1973 Wounded Knee: AIM members gather around an old pick up truck The Pine Ridge reservation, where Wounded Knee was located, had been in turmoil for years. To many in the area the siege was no surprise. The Oglala Lakota who lived on the reservation faced racism beyond its boundaries and a poorly managed tribal government within them. In particular, they sought the removal of tribal chairman Dick Wilson, whom many Oglala living on the reservation thought corrupt. Wilson seemed to favor mixed-race, assimilated Lakota like himself -- and especially his own family members -- over reservation residents with more traditional lifestyles. Efforts to remove Wilson by impeaching him had failed, and so Oglala Lakota tribal leaders turned to AIM for help in removing him by force. Their answer was to occupy Wounded Knee.
5. 1973 Wounded Knee: AIM members defend a blockade during the occupation of Wounded Knee The day after the Wounded Knee occupation began, AIM members traded gunfire with the federal marshals surrounding the settlement and fired on automobiles and low-flying planes that dared come within rifle range. Russell Means began negotiations for the release of the hostages, demanding that the U.S. Senate launch an investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and all Sioux reservations in South Dakota, and that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hold hearings on the scores of Indian treaties broken by the U.S. government.
6. 1973 Wounded Knee: An armed man stands guard at a Checkpoint
7. 1973 Wounded Knee: An armed Native American in a trench takes cover between sandbags An armed Native American in a trench takes cover between sandbags, the Sacred Heart Church in the background, during the Wounded Knee Occupation (also known as Second Wounded Knee) at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, 7th March 1973. On 27th February 1973, approximately 200 members of the 'American Indian Movement' (AIM) took the reservation hamlet of Wounded Knee by force, declaring it the 'Independent Oglala Sioux Nation,' the hamlet was immediately surrounded by federal marshals, and a siege began, which ended on 8th May 1973.
8. 1973 Wounded Knee: Federal troops walk on a road near Wounded Knee Federal troops walk on a road near Wounded Knee during the siege of the town on March 20, 1973, as about 200 American Indians occupe the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, for the rights of indigenous people. The town of Wounded Knee, the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, was seized on February 27, 1973, by followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who staged a 71-day occupation of the area. Two Indians were killed and a US Marshall was seriously wounded.
9. 1973 Wounded Knee: Four federal troops stand blocking the road to Wounded Knee Four federal troops stand blocking the road to Wounded Knee during the standoff between 200 members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the government, South Dakota, 1973. The AIM is demanding an increase in financial aid from the government for the town of Wounded Knee, the site of the last armed conflict between the United States government and the Great Sioux Nation, which resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Lakota Sioux Indians.
12. 1973 Wounded Knee: Occupiers escort negotiator Harlington Wood
13. 1973 Wounded Knee: Oglala Sioux Occupy Wounded Knee Oglala Sioux Occupy Wounded Knee. Ours Rapide. (Photo by Paul Slade/Paris Match via Getty Images). The Wounded Knee occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during which time two Sioux men were shot to death by federal agents and several more were wounded. On May 8, the AIM leaders and their supporters surrendered after officials promised to investigate their complaints. Russell Means and Dennis Banks were arrested, but on September 16, 1973, the charges against them were dismissed by a federal judge because of the U.S. government’s unlawful handling of witnesses and evidence. Violence continued on the Pine Ridge Reservation throughout the rest of the 1970s, with several more AIM members and supporters losing their lives in confrontations with the U.S. government. In 1975, two FBI agents and a Native man were killed in a shoot-out between federal agents and AIM members and local residents. In the trial that followed, AIM member Leonard Peltier was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. With many of its leaders in prison, AIM disbanded in 1978. Local AIM groups continued to function, however, and in 1981 one group occupied part of the Black Hills in South Dakota.
15. 1973 Wounded Knee: Russell Means, right, beats the drum at a meeting of the Wounded Knee occupation Russell Means, right, beats the drum at a meeting of the Wounded Knee occupation on March 10, 1973. A photojournalist who managed to get inside the cordon made a series of images of the stand-off and negotiations. On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, some 200 Sioux Native Americans, led by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), occupy Wounded Knee, the site of the infamous 1890 massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. The AIM members, some of them armed, took 11 residents of the historic Oglala Sioux settlement hostage as local authorities and federal agents descended on the reservation. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had the right to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development. Then, in early 1973, AIM prepared for its dramatic occupation of Wounded Knee. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country’s lowest rates of life expectancy.
16. 1973 Wounded Knee: Sacheen Littlefeather accepts Marlon Brando’s Best Actor Oscar Sacheen Littlefeather accepts Marlon Brando’s Best Actor Oscar Win for “The Godfather” (1973). Apache 26 year old actress & activist, Sacheen Littlefeather, President of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee was invited by Marlon Brando to speak. Brando refused to accept the award as Littlefeather details because of the treatment of Native Americans today by the film industry, tv, and at Wounded Knee. Prohibited from giving her entire speech, Littlefeather is both boo’d and applauded. She met with the press afterwards. In 2022, The Academy Awards apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather nearly 50 years later
19. 1973 Wounded Knee: Wounded Knee signs with spray paint Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Signs signifying events that occured there in 1890 and updated by spray paint after the Incident at Wounded Knee in 1973, the year this photo was taken. The Wounded Knee Incident began February 27, 1973. The town of Wounded Knee was seized by followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM). The occupiers controlled the town for 71 days while United States Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the town.
20. 1976 Leonard Peltier, AIM leader, is led across Oakalla Prison to a waiting helicopter Leonard Peltier, American Indian Movement leader, is led across Oakalla Prison to a waiting helicopter, on Dec. 17, 1976, in Burnaby, British Columbia. Peltier was a member of the American Indian Movement, a grassroots activist organization that began in Minneapolis in the 1960s to challenge police brutality and the oppression of Native Americans' rights. He was at Pine Ridge in 1975 in the wake of a drawn-out protest two years earlier at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where armed American Indian Movement activists and Oglala Sioux tribal members had occupied the town and clashed with federal law enforcement officers. Two activists were killed. Dozens of people participated in the gunfight; at trial, two co-defendants were acquitted after they claimed self-defense. When Peltier was tried separately in 1977, no witnesses were presented who could identify him as the shooter, and unbeknown to his defense lawyers at the time, the federal government had withheld a ballistics report indicating the fatal bullets didn't come from his weapon, Sharp said. "My co-defendants were found not guilty in self-defense, and I'm the one doing all this time," Peltier said.
21. 1973 Wounded Knee: Clyde Bellecourt with rifle Native American activist Clyde Bellecourt holding his fist clenched while holding his rifle high, in front of Sacred Heart Church, during the Wounded Knee Occupation at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, 13th April 1973. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had the right to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development.
22. 1973 Wounded Knee: Regina Brave with rifle Regina Brave with a rifle during the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1973. The occupation was initiated and led by Oglala women, including Regina Brave, the last woman arrested at Standing Rock. Though "men were the jawbone" of the occupation and the American Indian Movement in general, "women were the backbone." Other important women leaders include Gladys BIssonette and Ellen Moves Camp. Less than 1/3 of the hundreds of occupiers at Wounded Knee were men. Regina Brave with a rifle during the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1973. The occupation was initiated and led by Oglala women, including Regina Brave, the last woman arrested at Standing Rock. Though "men were the jawbone" of the occupation and the American Indian Movement in general, "women were the backbone." Other important women leaders include Gladys BIssonette and Ellen Moves Camp. Less than 1/3 of the hundreds of occupiers at Wounded Knee were men.
23. 1973 Wounded Knee: Activist Gladys Bissonette Gladys Bissonette during the 1970s. Thunder Hawk,of the Oohenumpa band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said there wasn’t a conscious effort to make women part of Wounded Knee – they were just there. It was instinctive to be part of the movement. She said tribal leadership back then was predominantly male because of a colonized way of thinking, but having a strong matriarchal presence was simply tradition and culture. “Anything that happens in community all revolves around the strong families and the matriarchs,” said Thunder Hawk, now 83. “That's the way it is.”
24. 1973 Wounded Knee: Dick Wilson with GOONs Tribal president Dick Wilson (center) and members of his paramilitary unit the GOONs (Guardians of the Oglala Nation). This photo is taken during the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee, where the GOONs worked with police and military to repress the resistance. Richard A. Wilson (April 29, 1934 – January 31, 1990) was elected chairman of the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where he served from 1972–1976, following re-election in 1974. Following complaints about his favoring friends and family in award of jobs and suppressing political opponents with his private militia, Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs), members of the tribal council brought impeachment charges against him in February 1973.
25. 1973 Wounded Knee: Dick Wilson Pine Ridge, S.D.: Richard Wilson, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council, revels a previously unreleased list given to him and later authenticated by a U.S. Justice Dept. official, showing names of American Indian Movement (AIM) militants occupying Wounded Knee, S.D., and the counts the Justice Dept. has against them. It was the first time such a list has shown there are definite charges against the AIM leaders and others in Wounded Knee. The prosecution was unprepared when Wilson said he was ready to go to trial, and the proceedings closed without completing the impeachment trial. Several hundred Lakota people marched in protest, demanding the removal of Wilson from office. US Marshals were assigned to protect Wilson and his family. AIM and Lakota supporters occupied the town of Wounded Knee, and a 71-day armed siege resulted, known as the Wounded Knee Occupation.
26. 1973 Wounded Knee: Dick Wilson with GOONs 2 Tribal president Dick Wilson with his GOONs during the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee. February 27, 1973, AIM Organization accepted the responsibility of providing all necessary strength and protection needed by the Oglala Sioux in the efforts to rid themselves of corrupt tribal president, Dick Wilson. Because this degenerated human being is financed and wholly supported by the FBI, CIA, BIA, U.S. Justice Dept., and the U.S. Marshals, it is virtually impossible for any Oglala to voice any kind of opinion which may run contrary to this puppet government without being arrested or beaten...a policy that cannot go unchallenged or unanswered.
27. 1973 Wounded Knee: Dick Wilson with U.S. Marshall Chief Wayne Colburn, chief of U.S. Marshalls talks with Dick Wilson at the Oglala Sioux roadblock leading into occupied Wounded Knee, March 27th, 1973. Violent conflict on the reservation continued after the resolution of the Wounded Knee incident. In the three years that followed, more than 50 opponents of Wilson allegedly died violently. One was Pedro Bissonette, head of the civil rights organization, who had originally invited AIM activists to Pine Ridge. He died in a reported altercation with a BIA policeman. Residents accused GOONs of arson and frequent assault. Wilson was alleged to have personally directed an assault on six AIM lawyers in February 1975, but no charges were filed.
28. 1973 Wounded Knee: AIM activist with rifle stands in the snow
29. 1973 Wounded Knee: AIM activist Oscar Bear Runner stands guard with a rifle AIM Member Oscar Bear Runner stands guard with a rifle during the Wounded Knee Occupation at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, March, 2nd 1973. The Wounded Knee occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during which time two Sioux men were shot to death by federal agents and several more were wounded. On May 8, the AIM leaders and their supporters surrendered after officials promised to investigate their complaints. Russell Means and Dennis Banks were arrested, but on September 16, 1973, the charges against them were dismissed by a federal judge because of the U.S. government’s unlawful handling of witnesses and evidence.
30. 1973 Wounded Knee: Armed AIM Members in a dugout Armed Native Americans, with the Sacred Heart Church in the background, during the Wounded Knee Occupation on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. March 7, 1973. Then, in early 1973, AIM prepared for its dramatic occupation of Wounded Knee. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country’s lowest rates of life expectancy.
32. 1973 Wounded Knee: An armed Native American in a trench looks over sandbags
34. 1973 Wounded Knee: Armed federal agents search a car
36. 1973 Wounded Knee: Native American activist Webster Poor Bear has bullet wound treated
37. 1973 Wounded Knee: Native American activist Webster Poor Bear has bullet wound treated 2

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1. 1970 2nd Chicano Moratorium: Protestors in the rain
3. 1974 The Great Wall of Los Angeles 1974 The Great Wall of Los Angeles is one of Los Angeles’ true cultural landmarks and one of the country’s most respected and largest monuments to inter-racial harmony. SPARC’s first public art project and its true signature piece, the Great Wall is a landmark pictorial representation of the history of ethnic peoples of California from prehistoric times to the 1950’s, conceived by SPARC’S artistic director and founder Judy Baca. Begun in 1974 and completed over five summers, the Great Wall employed over 400 youth and their families from diverse social and economic backgrounds working with artists, oral historians, ethnologists, scholars, and hundreds of community members.
4. 1970 First Earth Day “Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin was flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco for a meeting right around the time the spill happened. That huge, 800 square-mile oil slick was out there on the ocean, and he could see it out the plane window. That’s what gave him the impetus to organize Earth Day. He had this idea that we should have a day where, across college campuses, professors do a teach-in where they talk about the environment. I think with the ’69 oil spill, people had this realization that we should protect the environment for the environment’s sake. This concept of environmental rights emerged. UCSB history professor Rod Nash wrote this declaration of environmental rights and it was presented at this conference that was on the one year anniversary of the spill. He then went on to found the first environmental studies program in the U.S.”
5. 1973 Reverend Troy Perry stands in his burned-down church The church has also endured its share of troubles. MCC has faced anti-LGBTQ violence, particularly during what Perry terms a period of persecution in the 1970s when they lost five churches to arson—including a New Orleans gay bar called the Upstairs Lounge where MCC members were holding a meeting; it was the worst mass murder of LGBTQ persons in the U.S. until the Pulse night club massacre in 2016. According to the MCC History Project, their churches began to experience the full brunt of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the mid-1980s; the Rev. Elder Don Eastman wrote that by the time effective HIV treatments became available in 1996, MCC had lost one-third of its congregants. “I don’t believe that any disease, I don’t care what it is, is a gift from God to a class of people,” Perry said to the Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1983 during a televised debate. “We don’t want political games played with this issue. We want to make sure that people don’t die.”
6. 1973 Roe v Wade was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court
8. 1971 San Fernando Earthquake Damage to Road 2
9. 1978 California Prop 6: Protest Advertisment Advertisement against Proposition 6, an initiative sponsored by State Senator John Briggs to expel gay and lesbian teachers, 1978. The Briggs Initiative galvanized the California LGBTQ+ community, as well as state and national political figures. Harvey Milk, elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors the previous year, was arguably the most vocal and visible opponent of Proposition 6. More surprisingly, Ronald Reagan (then Governor of California) came out against it, as did both former US President Gerald Ford and current President Jimmy Carter. Anita Bryant made frequent appearances in support of Proposition 6 as part of the Save Our Children coalition. The referendum failed by a vote of 58.4% to 41.6%.
10. 1973 STAR 3 Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade in New York City. The term was reclaimed by lesbians within the women’s movement in 1970 who demanded inclusion and recognition. Some staff members from NOW resigned from their jobs to join the group. That same year members of the Lavender Menace disrupted the Second Congress to Unite Women, a conference sponsored by NOW by cutting the lights and changing into shirts with the name “lavender menace” on them, Lesbian rights were included in NOW’s six key issues in 1971 and in 1977, Betty Friedan apologized for her previous remarks and actively supported a resolution against sexual preference discrimination.
11. 1970 Lavender Menace 2 Rita Mae Brown, in Lavender Menace T-shirt, at the Lavender Menace Action, May 1st, 1970. The term "Lavender Menace" originated as a negative term for the association of lesbianism with the feminist movement, but it was later reclaimed as a positive term by lesbian feminists. The phrase "Lavender Menace" was reportedly first used in 1969 by Betty Friedan, president of The National Organization for Women (NOW), to describe the threat that she believed associations with lesbianism posed to NOW and the emerging women's movement. Friedan, and some other heterosexual feminists, worried that the association would hamstring feminists' ability to achieve serious political change, and that stereotypes of "mannish" and "man-hating" lesbians would provide an easy way to dismiss the movement.
12. 1979 White Night Riots 1
14. 1976 Harvey Milk on the Campaign Trail 1 Harvey Milk passes out fliers at a San Francisco Safeway grocery store during his 1976 state assembly run. Harvey Milk loved campaigning; that was the real secret of his success. For months out of every year, he would let his business drift into further disarray in order to get up at five in the morning and shake hands at bus stops, to visit people in the neighborhood, to speak at every meeting that he was invited to. He organized a Castro Village business association and the annual Castro Street Fair; he persuaded gay bars across the city to boycott Coors beer in aid of a union campaign. He became a figure in the neighborhood, and, eventually, one who could get things done.
15. In the 1970s, Davis was a fugitive on the FBI's most-wanted list. Once caught, she faced the death penalty in California but was later acquitted on all charges. Angela Davis raises her fist to give her power salute as she sits in the courtroom at Marin Civic Center in San Rafael, Ca., on March 16, 1971. Davis, who is accused of supplying some of the weapons used in a shoot-out during an attempted escape of prisoners at the Marin County Courthouse, is waiting for her court hearing to start after it was postponed because of bomb threats. In the fall of 1970, she was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. (AP Photo)
16. 1975 Christopher Street West Pride Parade The Gay Pride parade on Hollywood Boulevard in 1975. Before Stonewall, the Queer Revolution Started Right Here in Los Angeles. L.A. gays launched the movement (and the battle cry) that shook the world. Founded in 1970 and incorporated in 1976, Christopher Street West Association, Inc. is a nonprofit service organization within the LGBTQ community. The organization was responsible for organizing the world's first LGBTQ pride parade, which took place in Los Angeles. The original intent behind this parade was to celebrate LGBTQ resistance during the 1969 New York Stonewall Riots and to provide an experience in which LGBTQ individuals could feel pride in their identities, see others like themselves in a public setting, and not feel alone. The first pride parade took place on June 28, 1970, with approximately 1,000 people in attendance. Since its beginnings in the early 1970s, the parade now known as LA PRIDE has had a mardi gras-like and carnivalesque quality, presenting political platforms and viewpoints in a fun and celebratory manner. Each year, the parade reflects current social and cultural happenings within the LGBTQ community.
17. 1973 Self Help Graphics 1 “Self Help Graphics & Art emerged out of the inspiration and energies of a group of artists/printmakers working from an East Los Angeles garage. Known as Art, Inc. when they began working together in 1970, printmakers Sister Karen Boccalero, Carlos Bueno, Antonio Ibáñez, Frank Hernández, and others held their first exhibition at the El Mercado shopping center in 1971. Soon after, they relocated to Boyle Heights with a gift from the Order of the Sisters of St. Francis and by 1973, the organization was reestablished as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and changed its name to Self Help Graphics & Art (SHG).”
18. 1979-1992 Soviet - Afghan War - Operation Cylcone President Reagan meeting with Afghan Mujahideen leaders in the Oval Office in 1983. Operation Cyclone was the codename for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in support of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups, including groups with jihadist ties, that were favored by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Soviet-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan administration since before the Soviet intervention
19. 1977 Apple first computer for mass market and Floppy Disks After the duo invented the Apple I computer, an improved version known as Apple II was already underway. After getting a loan to make more computers, the company eventually took off selling millions of Apple II's well into the 1980s. 1977: The Second Generation: Apple officially became incorporated in January, then publicly released the Apple II in June, which was the first personal computer for the mass market. That same year, Michael Scott became the president of the company. 1978: Floppy Disks: The tech giant took a break from releasing computers and released the Apple Disk II, which was an external floppy-disk drive. The floppy disk was more expensive than what a gaming console costs in 2016. The Apple Disk had an introductory price of $495, but it was then raised to $595
20. 1970 3rd Chicano Moratorium: LASD officers outside the Silver Dollar Cafe 3
23. 1971 Attica Rebellion: Prisoners with makeshift amor in a hallway
24. 1971 Attica Rebellion: State troopers prepare to retake Attica 2 Armed officers walk by the entrance to the Attica Correctional Facility, in Attica, NY, in the aftermath of the riot at the prison, September 1971. Negotiations were led by a group of journalists, politicians and prison reformers, including the radical civil rights attorney William Kunstler and the New York Times columnist Tom Wicker. Shuttling between prisoners in the yard and state authorities gathered outside, the negotiators worked heroically toward a settlement. But Rockefeller was uncompromising, and after refusing to go to Attica to join the negotiations himself, he abandoned talks and ordered state troopers to “retake” the prison.
25. 1973 Minnie Lee & Mary Alice forcibly sterilized
26. 1973 Wounded Knee: Russell Means, right, beats the drum at a meeting of the Wounded Knee occupation Russell Means, right, beats the drum at a meeting of the Wounded Knee occupation on March 10, 1973. A photojournalist who managed to get inside the cordon made a series of images of the stand-off and negotiations. On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, some 200 Sioux Native Americans, led by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), occupy Wounded Knee, the site of the infamous 1890 massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. The AIM members, some of them armed, took 11 residents of the historic Oglala Sioux settlement hostage as local authorities and federal agents descended on the reservation. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had the right to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development. Then, in early 1973, AIM prepared for its dramatic occupation of Wounded Knee. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country’s lowest rates of life expectancy.
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2. 1960s - Uprooted The 1950s plan to erase Indian Country "Relocation worked to move Indian people into the urban core [while] white folks moved into suburban communities," Keeler said. "Relocation is about assimilation, but it's also very much about racism and who was entitled to what sort of housing and where." -In the 1950s, the United States came up with a plan to solve what it called the "Indian Problem." It would assimilate Native Americans by moving them to cities and eliminating reservations. The 20-year campaign failed to erase Native Americans, but its effects on Indian Country are still felt today.
3. Native American demonstrators inspect prison galleries in main cell block on Alcatraz Island.
4. Native American activist LaNada Means addresses a press conference alongside an artist's impression of a proposed cultural center LaNada proposes cultural center on the first anniversary of their occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, 20th November 1970. The occupation was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island from 20th November 1969 to 11th June 1971 when the United States Government forcibly ended the protest. (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
6. Occupants on Alcatraz Island, gather in front of the main cell block with the island's water tower in the background
7. Native American girl paints a sign that reads "Indian American Land" on a wall of Alcataz Island in San Francisco Bay
8. Occupation of Alcatraz Proclamation On Nov. 26, 1969, just before Thanksgiving Day Indians of All Tribes, issued the following press release indicating the seizure of Alcatraz Island. The 4-page press release reprinted by the Journal of American Indian Education in 1970 indicates that Alcatraz Island will be used for several Indian institutions including: 1. A Center for Native American Studies 2. An American Indian Spiritual Center 3. An Indian Center of Ecology 4. A Great Indian Training School 5. Creation of an American Indian Museum
9. Occupiers pose for a photo inside a cell block on Alcatraz during the occupation.
10. 1973 Wounded Knee: AIM members gather around an old pick up truck The Pine Ridge reservation, where Wounded Knee was located, had been in turmoil for years. To many in the area the siege was no surprise. The Oglala Lakota who lived on the reservation faced racism beyond its boundaries and a poorly managed tribal government within them. In particular, they sought the removal of tribal chairman Dick Wilson, whom many Oglala living on the reservation thought corrupt. Wilson seemed to favor mixed-race, assimilated Lakota like himself -- and especially his own family members -- over reservation residents with more traditional lifestyles. Efforts to remove Wilson by impeaching him had failed, and so Oglala Lakota tribal leaders turned to AIM for help in removing him by force. Their answer was to occupy Wounded Knee.
12. 1965-1971 Nuclear weapons tested in Aleutian Islands Map
13. 1964-75 42,000 Native men and women serve in Vietnam On his last day of service in Vietnam in 1963, Harvey Pratt (Cheyenne and Arapaho) poses in Da Nang carrying his rappelling rope that he used to descend from helicopters to clear landing fields. Pratt is the designer of the National Native Americans Veterans Memorial. During the Vietnam War, more than 42,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives join the U.S. armed forces. Poor military record keeping may have undercounted the number. American Indians seek each other out and share dismay that stereotypes about Indians influence officers to send them out front during dangerous missions. The Vietnam Memorial lists 248 American Indians and Alaska Natives killed in action.
14. 1962 Apsáalooke (Crow) nurse recognized for lifetime of fighting abuses Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail, an Apsáalooke (Crow)/Lakota registered nurse, receives the President’s Award for Outstanding Nursing Health Care. In 1930, she began traveling to reservations across the U.S. to learn about the condition of Indian health and to advocate for political action. She witnessed the forced sterilization of Crow women. On the Navajo reservation, she found that gravely ill Navajo children were literally dying on the backs of their mothers, who walked 20 miles or more to reach the nearest hospital. These experiences inspired her to dedicate her life to fighting abuses in the Indian health care system.
15. 1961 Alaska Native organizations unify; call for federal recognition of rights Three regional Alaska Native organizations—the Alaska Native Brotherhood, the Dena Nena Henash, and the Iñupiat Paitot—agree to affiliate. The new group expresses strong disagreement with the U.S. Secretary of Interior’s Alaska Task Force report on land claims and needs. “Citing the land recommendations as ‘inadequate,’ the Indian organization made a series of concise but far-reaching proposals of its own including changes in the current Native Allotment Act to allow securing several tracts of non-contiguous land, the need for leasing for native benefit reserved tribal lands and future withdrawals, and the need for Congress to define aboriginal land rights of the natives and to establish a forum in which their claims may be heard.” —Tundra Times, 1961
16. 1965 Robert F. Kennedy and reporters with student in woodshop at Sherman Indian High School. Robert F. Kennedy and reporters with student in woodshop at Sherman Indian High School. In the fall of 1963 the ninth and tenth grades were revived. Sherman Indian High School re-opened enrollment to other tribes, including California Indian tribes. The school again moved in the direction of a high school program, adding a grade each year until the school began graduating classes in 1966. In 1967 eight buildings were deemed unable to withstand a major earthquake. One of the last buildings to be razed was the old school building in 1970. The old cornerstone from this building and its contents were saved and placed in Sherman Museum (old Administrative Building), the last of the original buildings. In 1971, Sherman was re-accredited as a high school, and became known as Sherman Indian High School. The museum houses records from the school’s early days to the present. Over 2,000 catalogued items or artifacts of American Indian origin are housed there. These items were acquired from friends of the school and museum. In 1974, the Sherman Indian Museum was designated as a Riverside Cultural Heritage Landmark. It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. At present day Sherman, the school hosts an average of 300 to 500 students who come from reservations spanning the United States. Any student who is a tribal member of a federally-recognized tribe with at least one-fourth blood quantum may apply to attend. The school is funded entirely by the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Indian Education. Attendance is free of charge. The reasoning behind leaving home to come to Sherman vary. Some students attend SIHS because they live too far away from school, back at home, to attend daily. Others attend SIHS because they had negative experiences attending non-Native schools, and more than a few attend SIHS simply due to it being a family tradition. Sherman enforced a Reduction In Force of employees in the spring of 2009, due to budget constraints. Approximately 34 employees were laid off. Despite this, Sherman faculty and staff still work to provide a safe, healthy and productive site for their Native American students.
17. 1973 Wounded Knee: Wounded Knee signs with spray paint Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Signs signifying events that occured there in 1890 and updated by spray paint after the Incident at Wounded Knee in 1973, the year this photo was taken. The Wounded Knee Incident began February 27, 1973. The town of Wounded Knee was seized by followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM). The occupiers controlled the town for 71 days while United States Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the town.
19. 1973 Wounded Knee: Occupiers escort negotiator Harlington Wood
21. 1973 Wounded Knee: Oglala Sioux Occupy Wounded Knee Oglala Sioux Occupy Wounded Knee. Ours Rapide. (Photo by Paul Slade/Paris Match via Getty Images). The Wounded Knee occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during which time two Sioux men were shot to death by federal agents and several more were wounded. On May 8, the AIM leaders and their supporters surrendered after officials promised to investigate their complaints. Russell Means and Dennis Banks were arrested, but on September 16, 1973, the charges against them were dismissed by a federal judge because of the U.S. government’s unlawful handling of witnesses and evidence. Violence continued on the Pine Ridge Reservation throughout the rest of the 1970s, with several more AIM members and supporters losing their lives in confrontations with the U.S. government. In 1975, two FBI agents and a Native man were killed in a shoot-out between federal agents and AIM members and local residents. In the trial that followed, AIM member Leonard Peltier was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. With many of its leaders in prison, AIM disbanded in 1978. Local AIM groups continued to function, however, and in 1981 one group occupied part of the Black Hills in South Dakota.
22. 1973 Wounded Knee: AIM members defend a blockade during the occupation of Wounded Knee The day after the Wounded Knee occupation began, AIM members traded gunfire with the federal marshals surrounding the settlement and fired on automobiles and low-flying planes that dared come within rifle range. Russell Means began negotiations for the release of the hostages, demanding that the U.S. Senate launch an investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and all Sioux reservations in South Dakota, and that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hold hearings on the scores of Indian treaties broken by the U.S. government.
23. 1973 Wounded Knee: Russell Means, right, beats the drum at a meeting of the Wounded Knee occupation Russell Means, right, beats the drum at a meeting of the Wounded Knee occupation on March 10, 1973. A photojournalist who managed to get inside the cordon made a series of images of the stand-off and negotiations. On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, some 200 Sioux Native Americans, led by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), occupy Wounded Knee, the site of the infamous 1890 massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. The AIM members, some of them armed, took 11 residents of the historic Oglala Sioux settlement hostage as local authorities and federal agents descended on the reservation. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had the right to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development. Then, in early 1973, AIM prepared for its dramatic occupation of Wounded Knee. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country’s lowest rates of life expectancy.
25. 1965 Robert F. Kennedy and reporters with student as he works at Sherman Indian High School. In the fall of 1963 the ninth and tenth grades were revived. Sherman Indian High School re-opened enrollment to other tribes, including California Indian tribes. The school again moved in the direction of a high school program, adding a grade each year until the school began graduating classes in 1966. In 1967 eight buildings were deemed unable to withstand a major earthquake. One of the last buildings to be razed was the old school building in 1970. The old cornerstone from this building and its contents were saved and placed in Sherman Museum (old Administrative Building), the last of the original buildings. In 1971, Sherman was re-accredited as a high school, and became known as Sherman Indian High School. The museum houses records from the school’s early days to the present. Over 2,000 catalogued items or artifacts of American Indian origin are housed there. These items were acquired from friends of the school and museum. In 1974, the Sherman Indian Museum was designated as a Riverside Cultural Heritage Landmark. It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. At present day Sherman, the school hosts an average of 300 to 500 students who come from reservations spanning the United States. Any student who is a tribal member of a federally-recognized tribe with at least one-fourth blood quantum may apply to attend. The school is funded entirely by the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Indian Education. Attendance is free of charge. The reasoning behind leaving home to come to Sherman vary. Some students attend SIHS because they live too far away from school, back at home, to attend daily. Others attend SIHS because they had negative experiences attending non-Native schools, and more than a few attend SIHS simply due to it being a family tradition. Sherman enforced a Reduction In Force of employees in the spring of 2009, due to budget constraints. Approximately 34 employees were laid off. Despite this, Sherman faculty and staff still work to provide a safe, healthy and productive site for their Native American students.
28. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: A young brave from New Mexico at a Thanksgiving feast on Alcatraz Island A young brave from Nogales, New Mexico, at a Thanksgiving feast on Alcatraz Island on November 27, 1969. For Native American students at San Francisco State University and other schools around the Bay Area, the protests and strikes at University of California, Berkeley during the 1960s, were a glimpse into how political activism could begin to address the injustices Native people had long suffered. In meetings at San Francisco’s American Indian Center and Warren’s, a bar in the Mission District’s “Little Res,” a plan was hatched to take over Alcatraz Island, whose world-famous prison had recently been decommissioned and its land declared “surplus.” The siege of Alcatraz officially began on November 20, 1969, with two major goals — to agitate for Native American self-determination and sovereignty and to establish a Native American cultural center, museum and college on the island. In the 1960s, War Jack says, “just to identify yourself as a Native person would bring immediate discrimination and racism. [Alcatraz] helped us re-establish our self-identification as Native people. People developed pride.”
29. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Atha Rider Whitemankiller, stands before the press after the removal of the last occupiers from Alcatraz Overcoming exhaustion and disillusionment, Atha Rider Whitemankiller, Cherokee, stands before the press at the Senator Hotel in San Francisco after the removal of the last Indian occupiers from Alcatraz on June 11, 1971. His eloquent words about the purpose of the occupation of Alcatraz Island—to publicize his people’s plight and establish a land base for the Indians of the Bay Area—were the most quoted of the day.
30. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Two activist walking through a cell block
31. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: John Trudell on Alcatraz
32. 1973 Wounded Knee: Four federal troops stand blocking the road to Wounded Knee Four federal troops stand blocking the road to Wounded Knee during the standoff between 200 members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the government, South Dakota, 1973. The AIM is demanding an increase in financial aid from the government for the town of Wounded Knee, the site of the last armed conflict between the United States government and the Great Sioux Nation, which resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Lakota Sioux Indians.
33. 1964 The Fish-in Movement
34. 1964 The Fish-in Movement Liberty Boat 1964: First Actions of the Survival of the American Indian Association On December 23rd, 1963, some of the soon-to-be founding members of the SAIA marched on the state capital in Olympia, carrying signs that read “No salmon – No santa.”The Governor invited them in, listened to their complaints, and sent them away with only a dismissive, “Nice to hear your problems. Come back again.” The Native Americans involved in this protest were among those most adversely affected by the active state enforcement of fishing regulations. Many had been arrested on multiple occasions by state officers, and their gear had been confiscated numerous times. After years of waiting, they were completely disillusioned with the tribal organizations’ slow and halting attempts to resolve the fishing rights dispute through negotiation and compromise with state authorities. They saw an immediate need for confrontation and direct action in order to force real changes. Read more
35. 1964 The Fish-in Movement Protests Native Americans and supporters stage fish-in to protest denial of treaty rights on March 2, 1964. On March 2, 1964, Native Americans protest the denial of treaty rights by fishing in defiance of state law. Inspired by sit-ins of the civil rights movement, Actor Marlon Brando (b. 1924), Episcopal clergyman John Yaryan from San Francisco, and Puyallup tribal leader Bob Satiacum (1929-1991) catch salmon in the Puyallup River without state permits. The action is called a fish-in and results in the arrest of Brando and the clergyman. Satiacum is not arrested. The Pierce County Prosecutor refuses to file charges and Brando and Yaryan are released. Whenever tribal members fished for salmon and steelhead trout off their tiny reservations, they were held subject to state law. State regulations prohibited the use of nets and traps even though these were traditional Native methods of taking fish from rivers and streams. Native Americans insisting on their rights guaranteed by Treaties signed by Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862), were subjected to arrest and prosecution. The right to fish became a unifying identity among the diverse tribes of Puget Sound, which traditionally were tied to natural resources rather than to real estate. The fish-in was staged by the National Indian Youth Council, a Native American civil rights organization formed in Gallup, New Mexico, in 1961. NIYC members participated in "freedom rides" and civil rights marches in Alabama and Mississippi, and applied their knowledge of activism and civil disobedience to tribal issues. Fish-ins were used throughout the 1960s to dramatize racial discrimination, pride in native heritage, and to assert treaty rights. In 1974, a Federal court ruled that the tribes were entitled to half the salmon in Western Washington.
36. 1964 The Fish-in Movement police response 1964: Police brutalize tribal fishermen in Washington State. Local police brutalize tribal fishermen on the Puyallup River at Frank’s Landing, near Tacoma, Washington. Hank Adams, spokesman for the Survival of American Indians Association, sends an open letter to incoming Washington governor Dan Evans, informing him that Frank’s Landing is being posted against trespassing and that an armed guard is being stationed to prevent opposition by police officers.
37. 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake Rescue workers comb through a demolished home in the Turnagain area of Anchorage
38. 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake police car under ruins
39. 1973 Wounded Knee: Sacheen Littlefeather accepts Marlon Brando’s Best Actor Oscar Sacheen Littlefeather accepts Marlon Brando’s Best Actor Oscar Win for “The Godfather” (1973). Apache 26 year old actress & activist, Sacheen Littlefeather, President of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee was invited by Marlon Brando to speak. Brando refused to accept the award as Littlefeather details because of the treatment of Native Americans today by the film industry, tv, and at Wounded Knee. Prohibited from giving her entire speech, Littlefeather is both boo’d and applauded. She met with the press afterwards. In 2022, The Academy Awards apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather nearly 50 years later
40. 1973 Wounded Knee: An armed Native American in a trench takes cover between sandbags An armed Native American in a trench takes cover between sandbags, the Sacred Heart Church in the background, during the Wounded Knee Occupation (also known as Second Wounded Knee) at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, 7th March 1973. On 27th February 1973, approximately 200 members of the 'American Indian Movement' (AIM) took the reservation hamlet of Wounded Knee by force, declaring it the 'Independent Oglala Sioux Nation,' the hamlet was immediately surrounded by federal marshals, and a siege began, which ended on 8th May 1973.
41. 1973 Wounded Knee: AIM activists preparing for a purification ceremony
42. 1973 Wounded Knee: An armed man stands guard at a Checkpoint
44. 1973 Wounded Knee: Federal troops walk on a road near Wounded Knee Federal troops walk on a road near Wounded Knee during the siege of the town on March 20, 1973, as about 200 American Indians occupe the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, for the rights of indigenous people. The town of Wounded Knee, the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, was seized on February 27, 1973, by followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who staged a 71-day occupation of the area. Two Indians were killed and a US Marshall was seriously wounded.
48. 1968 President Johnson signs the Indian Civil Rights Act President Lyndon Johnson calls for “termination” to be replaced by Indian “self-determination.” Congress passes the Indian Civil Rights Act “to ensure that the American Indian is afforded the broad constitutional rights secured to other Americans … [in order to] protect individual Indians from arbitrary and unjust actions of tribal governments.” “The Act is a highly controversial law because it authorizes federal courts to intervene in intra-tribal disputes, a power they never had before. Many Indians bitterly resent this development. Essentially, it does two things: First, it confers certain rights on all persons who are subject to the jurisdiction of a tribal government. Second, it authorizes federal courts to enforce many of these rights.”
49. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Belvia Cottier, Sioux, and a young friend on Alcatraz A group of 78 Indians calling themselves Indians of All Tribes lands on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay and begins to occupy it in a demonstration for the rights of American Indians. Indians of All Tribes draws on powerful historic precedents of Native peoples taking a stand for the return of illegally taken lands, and they also usher in a new activist movement that draws attention with its mix of radicalism and American Indian traditionalism. “We moved onto Alcatraz Island because we feel that Indian people need a cultural center of their own. For several decades, Indian people have not had enough control of training their young people. And without a cultural center of their own, we are afraid that the old Indian ways may be lost. We believe that the only way to keep them alive is for Indian people to do it themselves.” —Letter from Indians of All Tribes, December 16, 1969
50. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Kids on bikes with lighthouse in background This is a photograph of Native American children playing on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. On November 20, 1969, 79 Native Americans, including six children, set out to occupy Alcatraz Island. The intention of the occupation was to gain Indian control over the island for the purpose of building a center for Native American Studies, an American Indian spiritual center, an ecology center, and an American Indian Museum.
51. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Playing basketball near main entrance
52. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Group by playground
53. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Hoka Hay!! Poster stating that the U.S. government has forcibly taken back—“ripped off”—Alcatraz Island. “Hoka Hay!!” translates roughly as “It is Over.” The poster appeared in Berkeley, California on June 12, 1971, the morning after the removal of remaining occupiers from the island. A group of 78 Indians calling themselves Indians of All Tribes lands on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay and begins to occupy it in a demonstration for the rights of American Indians. Indians of All Tribes draws on powerful historic precedents of Native peoples taking a stand for the return of illegally taken lands, and they also usher in a new activist movement that draws attention with its mix of radicalism and American Indian traditionalism. “We moved onto Alcatraz Island because we feel that Indian people need a cultural center of their own. For several decades, Indian people have not had enough control of training their young people. And without a cultural center of their own, we are afraid that the old Indian ways may be lost. We believe that the only way to keep them alive is for Indian people to do it themselves.” —Letter from Indians of All Tribes, December 16, 1969
54. 1968 Aim members In the summer of 1968, Native American activists Dennis Banks, George Mitchell, and Clyde Bellecourt gathered hundreds of like-minded individuals in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Armed with ultimate goal of forcing the United States to recognize Native American sovereignty, the activists formed the American Indian Movement group, or the AIM. As stated on AIM's official website, the American Indian Movement’s goals were: the recognition of Indian treaties by the United States government, among other goals such as sovereignty and the protection of Native Americans and their liberties. AIM has sought to accomplish these goals over the past five decades by bringing a multitude of successful lawsuits against the federal government with n the hopes of changing U.S. policy. Key events for the American Indian movement include the group’s formation in Minnesota in 1968, as well as the initial occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969. The movement also organized the “Trail of Broken Treaties” March, where protesters marched on Washington, D.C. Following the 1973 occupation by AIM leader Russell Means and his supporters at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, the AIM became an internationally known and recognized civil rights group. The New York Times even ran a story that reported on the vanishing number of Indians, as well as to their unfair treatment by the United States Federal government. In an Atlanta newspaper in 1973, Russel Means said that if the Indian voice isn’t heard among the U.S. government officials, “the situation…will evolve into a bigger and larger Wounded Knee.” It seems that Means was indeed correct, as an FBI officer was killed in a shootout with AIM at the Pine Ridge Reservation two years later.
55. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: 12 Alcatraz protestors voluntarily surrender
56. 1968 American Indian Movement advocates for urban Indian rights The founding board of the American Indian Movement meets in Minneapolis. Left to right: Harold Goodsky, Charles Deegan, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Peggy Bellcourt, Mr. & Mrs. Barber, Rita Rogers (seated), George Mitchell, Mrs. Mellessy and daughter. A group of 200 Natives meet in Minneapolis to found the American Indian Movement, known as AIM. Growing out of the late 1960s civil rights era, its objective is to protect the rights of urban Indians. The U.S. government considers the group radical. “The American Indian Movement office was the place to stop by if you needed a ride, an emergency loan, leads on jobs, or a place to live. Social services and political action were integrated.”
57. 1968 Government trains midwives for remote villages, First Alaska community health aide class. Left to right: Herman Moonin, Mary Wassillie, Mary Nikolai, Dr. Carolyn Brown, Anne Jackson, and Jennie Erickson.
58. 1968 Oil found in Prudhoe Bay; Alaska Native claims delay pipeline
59. 1966 Alaska Federation of Natives established to speak with one voice U.S. Secretary of Interior Walter J. Hickel, far left, meeting in Washington, D.C. with people involved in Native Alaska land claims disputes. From left to right: Tim Wallace, President Fairbanks Native Association; Charles Edwardsen, Executive Director Arctic Slope Native Association; Eben Hopson, Emil Notti; Attorney Barry Jackson (standing); State Senator William Hensley; and Alfred Ketzler. Farthest back on the right are State Senator Ray Christiansen and Frank Degnan. John Borbridge is seated in the foreground. A statewide conference of more than 400 Alaska Natives, representing several regional associations, establishes the Alaska Federation of Natives. Its purpose is to speak with a unified voice about land transfers, land claims, and resources development. The group pushes for a comprehensive settlement of all Alaska Native land claims, which comprise almost the state’s entire land mass.
60. 1964 Billy Mills after winning the 10,000m gold medal in Tokyo When Billy Mills arrived in Tokyo for the 1964 Olympic Games, few people knew much about the lanky US athlete. By the time he left two weeks later, he was a global star. The Olympics are full of inspirational stories but few are as compelling as that of Mills, the Native American distance runner who pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Games history and went on to become a prominent advocate of humanitarian causes and racial and social justice. Mills’ electrifying sprint in the final straight to overtake the leaders and win the 10,000m gold medal in Tokyo and his personal and spiritual journey to ‘heal a broken soul’ resonate more than ever in today’s turbulent times of racial protest. A member of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) tribe, Mills was born in 1938 and grew up in poverty on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. His mother died when he was eight; his father died when he was 12. Mills – whose Lakota name is Tamakoce Te’Hila (pronounced Tama-kosha Tech-a-heela) – overcame racial discrimination, hypoglycaemia, type 2 diabetes, suicidal thoughts and his own self-doubts to become an Olympic champion and a leading role model and campaigner for Native American youth.
61. 1964 Billy Mills Official Olympic Portrait in Tokyo Born June 30, 1938 at Pine Ridge. Haskell (Kan.) Indian School. 1962 Kansas grad. Before Oct. 14, 1964, Mills was unknown to all but a few track afficionados. But on that day the unheralded Mills achieved what some sports historians called 'the most sensational upset in Olympic history,' sprinting past Mohammed Gammoudi of Tunisia and Ron Clarke of Australia with 50 meters left to win the 10,000-meter race in Tokyo. Mills' time of 28 minutes, 24.4 seconds was an Olympic record and it was a personal best by 46 seconds. After his victory, Mills also competed in the 1964 Olympic marathon and placed 14th. The first South Dakotan to win a gold medal in the Olympic Games, Mills was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1976 and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1984. In 1965, Mills set a world record for six miles (27:11.6). He also held American records in the 3,000 (indoors and outdoors) and the 3-mile (indoors). Mills has traveled around the world as a motivational speaker. A movie of his life, 'Running Brave,' was made. Mills was orphaned at age 13, attended high school at the Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kan., then ran track at the University of Kansas, helping the Jayhawks win two NCAA championships. He was a three-time cross country All-American and was the individual champ at the 1960 Big Eight Conference meet. He accepted a commission in the Marine Corps and was given an opportunity to resume his distance running. While at Camp Pendleton, Calif., he upped his running mileage to more than 100 miles a week and earned a spot on the 1964 Olympic team.
64. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Sioux woman with a drink in cell
66. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: View of the fire which burned most of the night on Alcatraz Island
67. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Occupiers standing on the dock at Alcatraz On November 20, 1969, a group of Native students landed on an uninhabited Alcatraz and reclaimed it as Indian Land, beginning nineteen months of occupation. Leaders included Richard Oakes, an Akwesasne Mohawk and Chair of the Native American student group from San Francisco State College and LaNada War Jack, a member of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes and Chair of the Native American students from UC Berkeley. Thousands of Native people from across the country joined the original group of 80 occupiers. The Indians of All Tribes demanded that the federal government recognize treaties with Indian tribes, they demanded a Native American cultural center, and they demanded that land be returned. As the Occupiers discussed their plans, they wrote messages of peace and freedom around the island as well as submitting formal proposals and architectural plans. You can see several of their messages and symbols recently restored here at the dock.
70. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Native and Indigenous elders from throughout the country joined the young occupiers of Alcatraz Island for a meeting Native and Indigenous elders from throughout the country joined the young occupiers of Alcatraz Island for a meeting they said was the most important since the ‘Ghost Dance’ days of the 1880s. When, in 1956, the Bureau of Indian Affairs launched yet another assimilationist policy, the Indian Relocation Act, the intention was to further undermine Native communities by moving youth from Indian Reservations to urban centers throughout the West. Instead, the opposite occurred. Native people began, for the first time, to find support across tribal lines among the more than 100,000 relocated Indigenous people who shared similar histories of Indigenous identity and cultural survival… For Native American students at San Francisco State University and other schools around the Bay Area, the protests and strikes at University of California, Berkeley during the 1960s, were a glimpse into how political activism could begin to address the injustices Native people had long suffered. In meetings at San Francisco’s American Indian Center and Warren’s, a bar in the Mission District’s “Little Res,” a plan was hatched to take over Alcatraz Island, whose world-famous prison had recently been decommissioned and its land declared “surplus.” The siege of Alcatraz officially began on November 20, 1969, with two major goals — to agitate for Native American self-determination and sovereignty and to establish a Native American cultural center, museum and college on the island. In the 1960s, War Jack says, “just to identify yourself as a Native person would bring immediate discrimination and racism. [Alcatraz] helped us re-establish our self-identification as Native people. People developed pride.”
71. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Leaders of the American Indian Movement hold a press conference
72. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Occupiers moments after being removed from Alcatraz Island
73. 1964 Formal training and salary for physicians’ aides
74. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Woodcut print by Elvin Willie
75. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: LaNada with her son
76. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: LaNada Means poses with a proposed cultural center Native American activist LaNada Means poses with an architect's model of a proposed cultural center on the first anniversary of their occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, 20th November 1970. The occupation was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island from 20th November 1969 to 11th June 1971 when the United States Government forcibly ended the protest.
77. 1969-1971 Occupation of Alcatraz: Coast Gaurd ward off supporters in boats as they circle Alcatraz Islamd