"The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours." -
Black Elk - Oglala Sioux
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
February 27, 1973: American Indian Movement supporters occupy Wounded Knee, SD.
In the summer of 1968, two hundred members of the American Indian community came together for a meeting to discuss various issues that Indian people of the time were dealing with on an everyday basis. Among these issues were, police brutality, high unemployment rates, and the Federal Government's policies concerning American Indians.
From this meeting came the birth of the American Indian Movement, commonly known as AIM. With this came the emergence of AIM leaders, such as Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt to name a few. Little did anyone know that AIM would become instrumental in shaping not only the path of American Indians across the country, but the eyes of the world would follow AIM protests through the occupation at Alcatraz through the Trail of Broken Treaties, to the final conflict of the 1868 Sioux treaty of the Black Hills. This conflict would begin on February 27, 1973 and last seventy-one days. The occupation became known in history as the Siege at Wounded Knee.
It began as the American Indians stood against government atrocities, and ended in an armed battle with US Armed Forces. Corruption within the BIA and Tribal Council at an all time high, tension on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation was on the increase and quickly getting out of control. With a feeling close to despair, and knowing there was nothing else for them to do, elders of the Lakota Nation asked the American Indian Movement for assistance. This bringing to a head, more than a hundred years of racial tension and a government corruption.
On that winter day in 1973, a large group of armed American Indians reclaimed Wounded Knee in the name of the Lakota Nation. For the first time in many decades, those Oglala Sioux ruled themselves, free from government intervention, as is their ancient custom. This would become the basis for a TV movie, "Lakota Woman" the true story of Mary Moore Crowdog, and her experiences at the Wounded Knee occupation.
Want to know more? Click here: http://libcom.org/history/1973-siege-at-wounded-knee
From this meeting came the birth of the American Indian Movement, commonly known as AIM. With this came the emergence of AIM leaders, such as Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt to name a few. Little did anyone know that AIM would become instrumental in shaping not only the path of American Indians across the country, but the eyes of the world would follow AIM protests through the occupation at Alcatraz through the Trail of Broken Treaties, to the final conflict of the 1868 Sioux treaty of the Black Hills. This conflict would begin on February 27, 1973 and last seventy-one days. The occupation became known in history as the Siege at Wounded Knee.
It began as the American Indians stood against government atrocities, and ended in an armed battle with US Armed Forces. Corruption within the BIA and Tribal Council at an all time high, tension on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation was on the increase and quickly getting out of control. With a feeling close to despair, and knowing there was nothing else for them to do, elders of the Lakota Nation asked the American Indian Movement for assistance. This bringing to a head, more than a hundred years of racial tension and a government corruption.
On that winter day in 1973, a large group of armed American Indians reclaimed Wounded Knee in the name of the Lakota Nation. For the first time in many decades, those Oglala Sioux ruled themselves, free from government intervention, as is their ancient custom. This would become the basis for a TV movie, "Lakota Woman" the true story of Mary Moore Crowdog, and her experiences at the Wounded Knee occupation.
Want to know more? Click here: http://libcom.org/history/1973-siege-at-wounded-knee
Remaining 'authentic' in a changing world
Editorial - Indian Country Today
Authentic Indians'' are for many non-American Indians only those who look and dress like the stereotypical image of a Plains Indian - stoic and vanishing. There is a tendency for the general public - and often sympathetic foreigners - to believe that the only true Indians are those who greeted the Mayflower in 1620, and continue to live in the same way.
Famous anthropologists like Alfred Kroeber, a major researcher of California Indian tribes, and Franz Boas, the father of American anthropology, argued there were no authentic Indians in the United States after 1850. These men did not study the Indian communities they found during their field research, but tried to reconstruct Indian communities as they existed in the past, before significant Western contact. Rather than find examples of living history and continuing customs, they consulted elders who could remember the languages and cultures, the old ways.
There is no doubt that the anthropologists provided great service to tribal communities by preserving cultural knowledge and aspects of languages. But the emphasis on ''salvage'' anthropology, researching to find the last remnants of indigenous communities before they were lost, and the absence of interest in living indigenous communities, did a great disservice to indigenous peoples.
Indian people do change. We just may not change in patterns that are recognized or common to Western or American society. Indian people are willing to change and adapt to necessarily uphold their values, cultures and ways of life.
There's more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416670
Authentic Indians'' are for many non-American Indians only those who look and dress like the stereotypical image of a Plains Indian - stoic and vanishing. There is a tendency for the general public - and often sympathetic foreigners - to believe that the only true Indians are those who greeted the Mayflower in 1620, and continue to live in the same way.
Famous anthropologists like Alfred Kroeber, a major researcher of California Indian tribes, and Franz Boas, the father of American anthropology, argued there were no authentic Indians in the United States after 1850. These men did not study the Indian communities they found during their field research, but tried to reconstruct Indian communities as they existed in the past, before significant Western contact. Rather than find examples of living history and continuing customs, they consulted elders who could remember the languages and cultures, the old ways.
There is no doubt that the anthropologists provided great service to tribal communities by preserving cultural knowledge and aspects of languages. But the emphasis on ''salvage'' anthropology, researching to find the last remnants of indigenous communities before they were lost, and the absence of interest in living indigenous communities, did a great disservice to indigenous peoples.
Indian people do change. We just may not change in patterns that are recognized or common to Western or American society. Indian people are willing to change and adapt to necessarily uphold their values, cultures and ways of life.
There's more here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416670
Medal of Honor long overdue
The Bismarck Tribune
Woodrow Wilson Keeble will join select company March 3 at the White House. It was for heroism in battle in the Korean War that the soldiers he led - and saved - were convinced he deserved the Medal of Honor.
It's a pity Keeble won't be at the White House ceremony. He died in 1982.
But family members will be there.
It was too long in coming and for that reason almost didn't. The Army said the recommendations of Keeble's war buddies that he receive the medal, submitted twice, were lost. Then the legal deadline passed from the time of the heroic action, and only Congress could supersede the time limit.
It did. North Dakota's two senators and those from South Dakota accomplished it, fitting since Keeble was born in South Dakota, but counted North Dakota home.
Keeble was a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe, members of whom live in both states.
The Tribune noted editorially in April 2006 that "a sixth American Indian (should) join the five who were awarded the nation's highest military honor" from World War II and the Korean War, citing their "gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of ... life above and beyond the call of duty" while engaging an enemy in combat.
"Chief," as the men of Keeble's company called him, can be numbered with Medal of Honor awardees Jack Montgomery, a Cherokee; Ernest Childers, a Creek; Van Barfoot, a Choctaw; Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., a Winnebago; and Charles George, a Cherokee. The last two mentioned were in the Korean War, as was Keeble, and with the others had been in World War II, where he survived the fighting on Guadalcanal.
Finally, the name of Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble will be adorned with "Medal of Honor," fitting for the warrior whom his platoon leader as an old man called "the best soldier I ever served with."
Woodrow Wilson Keeble will join select company March 3 at the White House. It was for heroism in battle in the Korean War that the soldiers he led - and saved - were convinced he deserved the Medal of Honor.
It's a pity Keeble won't be at the White House ceremony. He died in 1982.
But family members will be there.
It was too long in coming and for that reason almost didn't. The Army said the recommendations of Keeble's war buddies that he receive the medal, submitted twice, were lost. Then the legal deadline passed from the time of the heroic action, and only Congress could supersede the time limit.
It did. North Dakota's two senators and those from South Dakota accomplished it, fitting since Keeble was born in South Dakota, but counted North Dakota home.
Keeble was a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe, members of whom live in both states.
The Tribune noted editorially in April 2006 that "a sixth American Indian (should) join the five who were awarded the nation's highest military honor" from World War II and the Korean War, citing their "gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of ... life above and beyond the call of duty" while engaging an enemy in combat.
"Chief," as the men of Keeble's company called him, can be numbered with Medal of Honor awardees Jack Montgomery, a Cherokee; Ernest Childers, a Creek; Van Barfoot, a Choctaw; Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., a Winnebago; and Charles George, a Cherokee. The last two mentioned were in the Korean War, as was Keeble, and with the others had been in World War II, where he survived the fighting on Guadalcanal.
Finally, the name of Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble will be adorned with "Medal of Honor," fitting for the warrior whom his platoon leader as an old man called "the best soldier I ever served with."
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