AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT-AIM

 

The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a grassroots movement for Indigenous rights, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Originally an urban-focused movement formed in response to police brutality and racial profiling, AIM grew rapidly in the 1970s and became the driving force behind the Indigenous civil rights movement. 

AIM members and their allies have conducted some of the highest-profile protests and acts of civil disobedience in American Indian history. Although AIM split in two in 1993, its successors continue its legacy of fighting for Native American rights, holding the United States responsible for the dozens of treaties it has broken and drawing attention to the cause of Indigenous peoples around the world.- A consistent tactic of AIM organizers has been to draw attention to the federal government’s long history of broken promises to Indigenous Americans. In 1972, AIM organized its most ambitious action to date, the Trail of Broken Treaties. Hundreds of Native Americans drove in caravans, beginning on the West Coast, to the offices of the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. During the occupation, AIM released the Twenty Points, a list of demands that included the re-recognition of Native tribes, abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (an organ of the Department of the Interior) and federal protections for Indigenous cultures and religions. The occupiers held the BIA office for a week, building a tipi on its lawn.

President Richard Nixon dismissed the Twenty Points but took the protest seriously, endorsing self-determination for Indian tribes. With his support, Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which reversed the termination policy and provided recognition and funds to Indian tribes.

Between the Trail of Broken Treaties and the passage of the Self-Determination Act, however, violent conflict erupted between Native American activists and federal authorities. In 1973, an Indian man named Wesley Bad Heart Bull was stabbed to death by a white man in Custer, South Dakota. AIM activists and others rallied to the area to demand justice, but were not satisfied with the local authorities’ response. The confrontation escalated into a riot in Custer followed by an armed Indian occupation of the Pine Ridge Reservation, the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.

 

 

The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a grassroots movement for Indigenous rights, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Originally an urban-focused movement formed in response to police brutality and racial profiling, AIM grew rapidly in the 1970s and became the driving force behind the Indigenous civil rights movement. 

AIM members and their allies have conducted some of the highest-profile protests and acts of civil disobedience in American Indian history. Although AIM split in two in 1993, its successors continue its legacy of fighting for Native American rights, holding the United States responsible for the dozens of treaties it has broken and drawing attention to the cause of Indigenous peoples around the world.- A consistent tactic of AIM organizers has been to draw attention to the federal government’s long history of broken promises to Indigenous Americans. In 1972, AIM organized its most ambitious action to date, the Trail of Broken Treaties. Hundreds of Native Americans drove in caravans, beginning on the West Coast, to the offices of the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. During the occupation, AIM released the Twenty Points, a list of demands that included the re-recognition of Native tribes, abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (an organ of the Department of the Interior) and federal protections for Indigenous cultures and religions. The occupiers held the BIA office for a week, building a tipi on its lawn.

President Richard Nixon dismissed the Twenty Points but took the protest seriously, endorsing self-determination for Indian tribes. With his support, Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which reversed the termination policy and provided recognition and funds to Indian tribes.

Between the Trail of Broken Treaties and the passage of the Self-Determination Act, however, violent conflict erupted between Native American activists and federal authorities. In 1973, an Indian man named Wesley Bad Heart Bull was stabbed to death by a white man in Custer, South Dakota. AIM activists and others rallied to the area to demand justice, but were not satisfied with the local authorities’ response. The confrontation escalated into a riot in Custer followed by an armed Indian occupation of the Pine Ridge Reservation, the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.

 

 

The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a grassroots movement for Indigenous rights, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Originally an urban-focused movement formed in response to police brutality and racial profiling, AIM grew rapidly in the 1970s and became the driving force behind the Indigenous civil rights movement. 

AIM members and their allies have conducted some of the highest-profile protests and acts of civil disobedience in American Indian history. Although AIM split in two in 1993, its successors continue its legacy of fighting for Native American rights, holding the United States responsible for the dozens of treaties it has broken and drawing attention to the cause of Indigenous peoples around the world.- A consistent tactic of AIM organizers has been to draw attention to the federal government’s long history of broken promises to Indigenous Americans. In 1972, AIM organized its most ambitious action to date, the Trail of Broken Treaties. Hundreds of Native Americans drove in caravans, beginning on the West Coast, to the offices of the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. During the occupation, AIM released the Twenty Points, a list of demands that included the re-recognition of Native tribes, abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (an organ of the Department of the Interior) and federal protections for Indigenous cultures and religions. The occupiers held the BIA office for a week, building a tipi on its lawn.

President Richard Nixon dismissed the Twenty Points but took the protest seriously, endorsing self-determination for Indian tribes. With his support, Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which reversed the termination policy and provided recognition and funds to Indian tribes.

Between the Trail of Broken Treaties and the passage of the Self-Determination Act, however, violent conflict erupted between Native American activists and federal authorities. In 1973, an Indian man named Wesley Bad Heart Bull was stabbed to death by a white man in Custer, South Dakota. AIM activists and others rallied to the area to demand justice, but were not satisfied with the local authorities’ response. The confrontation escalated into a riot in Custer followed by an armed Indian occupation of the Pine Ridge Reservation, the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.