Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement

摘要

The American Indian Movement (AIM), inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States, organized in the summer of 1968 in Minnesota near the Minneapolis and St. Paul Native American neighborhoods. Its early founders and leaders were activists and still widely recognized names who are identified primarily with the movement they began. Dennis Banks, Russell Means, Clyde Bellecourt and others demanded freedom from oppressive government intervention in Native American affairs and protection from brutal force exercised upon them by the local police. During the late 1960s and 1970s AIM organized occupations of abandoned federal territories such as Alcatraz Island beginning as early as 1964 but acquiring a more lasting sense of permanence by the fall of 1969. The infamous formal federal prison was declared surplus property by the government and was being claimed by approximately 250-300 Native Americans for the purpose of creating a cultural centre.