Is this how you thought the actual Wounded Knee post would be presented? Stroke of genius really, at any rate this is a history I have grown up hearing. I've known the broad strokes for so long it felt like I was an expert when I started the Bands of Turtle Island podcast when I was like 19 maybe just turned 20. I impressed people so much a producer from Jacobin reached out and offered 15k to tell this exact story, and we all know how much Jacobin sucks but it was a great little podcast called "People's History" named of Zinn's book. So I demanded artistic and editorial control. This was paid by 3 entities and paid to multiple people I received 10k which what I received for labor went back into the podcast to make it better. I visited 53 reservation communities and 18 urban organizers from a wide variety of parties/orgs to better understand the conditions of the US. Because of this I learned just how little I knew, and realized there is a missing piece to a larger question of why momentum of the movement slowed to a crawl and is properly better suited for a long form piece that doesnt need pictures to save characters. On February 27th, 1973 (51 Years Ago) my family helped lead the famous Wounded Knee Re-Occupation. There countless people came and went while a core 300 occupied the town for 71 days and declared the Independent Oglala Nation backed by the traditional chief Frank Fool's Crow and Matthew King who commanded considerable political sway among traditional communities on Pine Ridge (often "coincidentally" also the poorest) who were being harrassed and assaulted by Dick Wilson to coerce them into agreeing to sell off a tenth of the reservation to Uranium mines like Union Carbide.
They chose Wounded Knee because of the symbolism in protesting there, it didn't turn into a re-occupation effort until AFTER Richard "Dick" Wilson set up road blocks, and used arms supplied by the US government to blockade. In Dicks mind AIM was coming to kill him, when they drove by the Tribal council building instead he chased them to Wounded Knee to instigate a fight while claiming the American Indian Movement was. In fact one of their supporters had survived the 1890 massacre, and is pictured above.
My elders call this period the Reign of Terror. Dick Wilson killed the equivalent amount of people to Pinochet's first 3 years. My uncle Leo saw his uncle burned alive as the Dick Wilson and his GOON (Guardians of the Oglala Nation) Squad tried to firebomb Fool's Crow who wasn't in his home at the time. OSCRO was even able to successfully collect the signatures needed to impeach, only Dick Wilson oversaw his own impeachment trial. Of course he was innocent.
Their argument was premised on the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty which by precedent set by the Marshall Trilogy in the Supreme Court, was the supreme law of the land equal to the constitution. This led to it be conceived as a Civil Rights issue by the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (which is ironic considering Sioux is a slur), who would be the ones to ask AIM to come protect them as they collected signatures. After the impeachment failed, what recourse were we left with a literal dictator murdering his political opponents?
The reason this history is so mystified and hidden is because it lays bare so succinctly, the continuation of COINTELPRO after it was made public. The solution was a new far more encompassing program that was essentially a domestic Phoenix program called Garden plot at least at the time of the re-occupation. What its become now is anyone's guess but Newsweek uses the limited hangout phrase 'Signature Reduction' which stems from the Douglass Durham infiltration imo and is the premise of the book I am writing.
During the period of 1965-1973 are 71 Red Power actions, one of which is led by Herb Powell and is the first example of a landback protest. This resulted in a lighthouse being returned and utilized as a Survival School and Indigenous spirituality led rehab center to combat the AA/NA Christianity underpinnings that often drove away Indigenous people. Akewsasne Notes are some of the most comprehensive resources available of the period beside archive footage and are archived online. Madonna is my aunt, sister to David Swallow Jr and Russell Means and you can learn so much about her in Warrior Women (just wait we will make it accessible)
Madonna's daughter Marcella actually incredibly went to Cuba for the 11th World Youth Festival in 1978, she went and met the youth movement of the PLO around the same period too, my mom wrote the Denver youth program charter, this has always been one generation building of the other. Madonna calls it "a movement of families" I argue what we need is a family of movements united under one.
It's no exaggeration either! David's grandpa rode with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, Fool's Crow was 88 in 1974 (John Denver sang at his birthday oddly and we have the footage and me the people who filmed it) people think these things are so far away but literally up until the 90s you had to speak Lakota on my rez. Now the language is practically gone. Is it any wonder the ghost dance which caused so much fear they murdered a childs mother while still breastfeeding, while under a truce flag, caused just as much fear in the state agents hoping to kill more Indians?
This year we were the ones who funded the gas, water and part of the food being provided, we are housing the victims of this violence after decades of continuously being tossed around. The photo under this one was taken by my former boss Nick Estes, in it you see a Palestinian Flag next to the AIM Flag and next to an upside down American Flag. When the flag is upside down it means you are under duress during war, this is a war. Its still be raged, just in the 90s under Clinton the ATF, FBI and more raided our Sundance accusing David of forming a militia and having bazookas. They found only a Buffalo gun. They are so afraid of us picking up the rifle again, and this spring David will be going to the senate and demanding the BIA and Tribal Council dissolve operations on our reservation. He will be demanding the reinstatement of the 1868 land claims, as a starting point to honest relations and building a future. This will be denied. There will be turmoil. You need to be ready.
If you enjoy these posts, want to support this movement, and in general learn more about us check out our https://linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork where you can see our other social media to get updates on our public works, read our first year organizing strategy, or find our patreon/liberapay links in order to support this work monthly. Otherwise right now we have a huge ask for $1000 for an electric bill that got away from the Indigenous family, enbridge owns their utility too and I just find it particularly moving to help them fight their electric being shut off by some one poisoning their lands right now as we speak. You can donate to $ZitkatosTinCan on cashapp and @zitkato on venmo we are hoping to fulfill this one by the 8th. We also have ask for that we currently are at 1500/4500 for a trailer to house an elder, unfortunately the trailers we got donated were falling apart and would definitely collapse on the journey to the Rez. This one is in Rapid City and we can haul it with a pick up and just need to winterize it and hook it up to electricity which we are estimating to be 1500+ as you can tell we always have a ton going on this will be the 2rd home we provided this year, and we are sending a permaculture crew to the land this March who will be staying in a Tipi until we build several A Frame Cabins this May-September during our construction caravans. We have been asked to also help develop an ID and passport production system like the Haudenosaunee have, and are looking for ideas and pointers. This is far more than a mutual aid organization, and people should learn just how much we are doing and how much our base already believes in us. I dont know any other party where we are, and we barely have our governing documents together so why not support us and see where we can go
Lastly fuck commas and the English language
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