Facing a series of challenges, "the guidance that those Wounded Knee veterans gave to us was to never give up, to always do the right thing and stand up for the people even if it s hard," one said.
Rachel Thunder stood on a snowy hill in Wounded Knee, inspired to continue the work of those who occupied this village 50 years ago in a historic stand for Indigenous rights.
American Indian Movement (AIM), militant Native American civil rights organization, founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1968 by Ojibwe activists Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Eddie Benton Banai, Pat Bellanger, and George Mitchell. Later, Russell Means, an activist of Oglala Lakota Sioux descent, became a prominent spokesman for the group. AIM’s original purpose was to provide aid to Native people in cities who had been displaced by U.S. federal government programs. Its goals eventually encompassed the entire spectrum of Native demands economic independence, revitalization of traditional culture, protection of legal rights, and, most especially, autonomy over tribal areas and the restoration of lands