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KEVIN MCKIERNAN: It was a large, friendly, and supportive audience that came last week to the University of Minnesota to attend the Wounded Knee rally sponsored by the American Indian Movement. Numbering between 3,000 and 4,000, the audience was composed mostly of young and Indian people. Although the group cut across racial lines to include Blacks, Chicanos, and whites.

Over a period of almost six hours, the audience heard from a diversity of speakers, from a state congressman, a Black activist with a history of political conflict, two civil rights defense lawyers, Indian spokesmen, both from AIM and from the Indian Studies Department at the U of M, and from two church officials. One of the first to speak was Minnesota legislator Allan Spear.

ALAN SPEAR: Wounded Knee in 1890 is sometimes called the Battle of Wounded Knee. Don't you believe that for one minute. They're always "battles" when the white people kill the Indians. They're only "massacres" when the Indians killed the white people.

[APPLAUSE]

But you know what happened at Wounded Knee in 1890? Do you know why Wounded Knee has gained the kind of symbolism that it has for the Indian people? Well, very briefly, in 1890, there was a small group of Indians, mostly people who had been defeated in a long series of wars in which the white people stole the Indians' land and killed them. A small group of people were crossing a reservation, the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. And they were stopped by the cavalry who ordered them to disarm, and they did disarm. And the cavalry ordered a search for weapons.

And several Sioux broke into a dance and chanted a holy song. To the soldiers, this was resistance. They opened fire on a group of 120 men and 230 women, and they shot them down, people who were totally disarmed. Black Elk, one of the few survivors of the massacre of Wounded Knee, described it this way.

We followed down the dry gulch, and what we saw was terrible. Dead and wounded Indian women and children and little babies were scattered all along where they had been trying to run away. The soldiers had followed along the gulch as they ran and murdered them in their.

Sometimes, they were in heaps because they had huddled together, and some were scattered all along. I saw a little baby trying to suck its mother, but she was bloody and dead. This is the way it was. The women and children ran into the gulch and up the west, dropping all the time for the soldiers shot them as they ran.

There were only about 100 warriors, and there were nearly 500 soldiers. The warriors rushed to where they had piled their guns and knives. They fought soldiers with their hands. But after the soldiers marched away from their dirty work, a heavy snow began to fall. The wind came up in the night. There was a big blizzard, and it grew very cold. The snow drifted deep in the crooked gulch, and it was one long grave of butchered women and children and babies who had never done any harm and were only trying to run away. That was Wounded Knee in 1890.

Now, does it sound like anything familiar? Well, some 78 years later, there was a massacre some 10,000 miles across the world at a place called My Lai. And if you think that the connection is a dubious one, let me just suggest this. The Indian people were the first victims of American imperialism. The Vietnamese have only been the most recent.

[APPLAUSE]

The same kind of cultural arrogance, the same kind of political arrogance, the same kind of greed, the same kind of belief that "our way and only our way must dominate the world" led to Wounded Knee, also led to me My Lai. After Wounded Knee, the expansion of the American empire crossed the ocean, led ultimately to the Mekong.

It went via many other routes along the way-- Latin American countries, Birmingham, Alabama, brown people, Black people, yellow people, as well as red people have faced the same kind of massacre that those few people faced in 1890 at Wounded Knee. And what the American Indian Movement is doing today is the same thing that nonwhite people and I hope their white supporters are doing everywhere.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Mark Lane, one of the Wounded Knee defense lawyers, related a series of background events on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which led up to the Wounded Knee occupation. He contended as well that tribal chairman Richard Wilson worked in collusion with the United States government, and he alleged a bias in news reporting from Wounded Knee last spring.

MARK LANE: There have been many things said about Wounded Knee in the press, and almost all of them are untrue, almost all of them. I know the Minneapolis Tribune has been the one paper in the country which has come the closest to presenting the facts about Wounded Knee. But there is almost no place you can go in this country and find anyone who has watched CBS, NBC, ABC or read the local paper or Time and Newsweek every week and who has any understanding about what happened there.

What happened really in Wounded Knee is that after years and years of oppression and brutality and after years and years of the Indian people trying to live under the system imposed upon them by the Indian Reorganization Act, which presents to them our way of life and imposes it upon the Indian people, and trying to function through that system, trying to bring about some redress of grievances by going-- when there was someone badly beaten by the police, going and raising the question.

But then finally, the witness who raised the question was himself badly beaten by the police. And finally, leading up to the point where an effort was made through the system to impeach the tribal chairman, Dick Wilson, all to no avail. All to no avail.

Dave Long was elected as vice chairman of the tribe at the same election which Dickie Wilson was elected chairman, and Wilson decided that he didn't like Dave Long because Dave Long was making some sounds, which sounded like sympathetic sympathy for AIM and for the just demands of the people on the reservation. And so Wilson said, OK, you're fired.

He said, the vice chairman is fired. The vice chairman who had been elected by the voters on the reservation. And of course, Long said, well, you don't have that authority and went to work the next day. And then his house was burned down with his children in it that night. And that's the way people who have tried over the years to work through the system on the Pine Ridge Reservation have been treated.

Until finally, there was a motion for the impeachment of Wilson, and there were sound grounds. And he should have been impeached, but he got his muscle men together and called off the impeachment, and that was the end of it. There just is no system on the Pine Ridge Reservation through which one can work. The problem is not working through the system, but trying to find it if you want to work through it.

And so after all of this, all of these years, the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation and meeting after meeting, and finally at one last meeting voted unanimously-- that's the medicine men and the tribal chairman, and the traditional leaders of the reservation-- voted unanimously to ask AIM to join-- to ask the leadership and members of AIM to come into Wounded Knee and join with them in an effort to repossess their own land. And that's the crime of Wounded Knee, for which the defendants are facing, in some cases, between 150 and 175 years in jail each. That's the crime.

And then, of course, after we went to see Judge Bogue early in this thing and we asked, because the federal government ringed the area with tanks, armored personnel carriers, tread vehicles, armored vehicles that look just like tanks, with machine guns. They used helicopters, used M16s. It was a Vietnamese village surrounded by an American task force. That's what Wounded Knee became as far as the government was concerned.

And sometimes, 20 or 30 rounds-- 20,000 or 30,000 rounds of ammunition a night fired into that little village where children and babies and women and men were sleeping in their own homes. And the whole idea of the encirclement was to starve out the Indian people.

The same game, the same trick, the same military method that has been used against Indians since the cavalry first came to these shores, to starve them to death, just as they-- by edict of a president of the United States, the buffalo were destroyed because they provided food and shelter and clothing for the Indian people. And here again now, the same method to starve the Indian people to death.

We went to see Judge Bogue, the federal judge, and we said, let the food go in. There are people living there. And he said, these are all criminals. And we try to point out to him that criminal is someone who's been convicted of a crime and no one even had been charged at that point. But in addition to that, most of the people in Wounded Knee from the very beginning were the residents of Wounded Knee who remain living there.

And this is something which the media has never presented. Because when finally the judge signed the order and said, all right, for six days, six lawyers could each bring a car load of food. In other words, six carloads of food could go into Wounded Knee for a period of six days. Well, the negotiations were about to begin.

The first day, we brought the food. And the second day, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the United States marshals, knowing they could not stop us because we had an order signed by the federal judge of South Dakota saying we could go in there, the federal government arranged to have another roadblock established set up by Dickie Wilson and John Hussman and Woody Richards and a group of hired goons with guns, and they blocked that.

And when lawyers came the next day and legal workers tried to deliver food, the food was stolen from them, and they were pushed around. And they were told that they don't care what the federal district judge says. And so we went back to see Judge Bogue. We said, here is your order, and we're trying to follow it.

Now, these people have set up an illegal roadblock with guns and have prevented the federal court order from being carried out. What are you going to do about it? And he said, well, what can I do? He said, the FBI is against me. The Marshals are against me. I have no power. And he was practically cringing at our feet telling us he had no power. The most powerful man in the state of South Dakota, the federal judge, was telling us he had no power to act.

And do you know what he finally did that day? He acted by crossing out the provision of the order which said that food could go in for six days. The federal court in South Dakota yielded to the pressure of the goon squad and the vigilantes and changed the order because the order could not be effectuated if the goon squad didn't want it to be effectuated and if the FBI and the Marshals did not want it to be effectuated.

And then the press started telling us about the goon squad roadblock. And of all of the lies told about wounded knee, this was the most vicious. That the members of AIM had gone in, had occupied the homes of the people who lived there, who chased the people out, and they destroyed their homes. That was the story we got day after day from all of the news and wire services and the national television networks.

And at that time, in fact, there were 35 families-- there were only were 52 families in Wounded Knee at the beginning. There were 35 families from Wounded Knee who were living outside of Wounded Knee. How did they get out? Because on one Saturday morning, the FBI and the Marshals informed the people of Wounded Knee that they could go out and go shopping that day, and they would be allowed free access back to their homes.

And so 35 families left to go shopping. And when they were turned back to the roadblock, they were told they could never get back in again. And the press said, you see, the people have left AIM and they don't want to return. And when we discussed this with CBS and NBC and ABC, they all had their television crews in the giant trailers outside of the churches and in Pine Ridge. One was about 10 feet from the church.

There were eight families living in that church overnight because they had no place else to go. They lived there for a couple of weeks. They had no place else to go. And those families were giving us affidavits and statements telling how they'd been tricked out and how they wanted to go back in, and CBS was carrying stories about how all the Indian families, the old time residents had deserted AIM.

And there they were, 10 feet away from the trailer, and they wouldn't go in and talk to the people. Instead, they went across the street to the BIA building and listen to the briefing sessions which were presented by the federal government and its agents. And that's how the news of what took place in Wounded Knee reached the American people. One federal government lie after another.

And so finally, a petition was circulated among the 30-- there were then 36 families, and a petition was circulated among the 36 families who were living outside. In response to the statements of the goon squad, that we have set up this roadblock for one purpose, and that is because we represent the old time residents of Wounded Knee. 36 families signed that petition, and everyone over the age of 6 in each of the families signed the petition.

And the petition said, the goon squad is not acting on our behalf. In fact, we call upon the federal government to arrest every member of the goon squad. We support the AIM liberation of our community, and we ask for permission to go back to our homes. We ask permission to let the food go in and feed us and our guest, the leaders and members of AIM. And that was then proof that everything the media had said about the occupation was a lie. But it has never been published.

And then when the occupation ended, we were there the day the treaty was signed. And as it was being signed and before that ink was dry, the federal Marshals kept on-- the FBI agents kept on firing white phosphorus flares into the area surrounding Wounded Knee to burn down the grass. And they always fired the flares upwind from the village so that the smoke would blow into the village. And they were doing that as the agreement was being signed in the DMZ on a hill overlooking Wounded Knee.

As the people were signing, I looked over their heads and I saw the flares and the fires and the smoke blowing into the village. And it went on. This was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and there was no need for flares to light up the area. It was bright. And then after, one of the terms was that the people in Wounded Knee would come out on the day, which was set in May, that all the people would come out, they would be quickly processed.

Those who had ID could either go back if they lived in Wounded Knee or go back to wherever they wanted to go in Rapid City or any place else off around the reservation. Those who didn't have ID would be quickly photographed and fingerprinted and then could go back or could leave. They went there at 7:30 in the morning. They were taken up to the hill, and they were there till 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Little babies without water or milk outdoors, all day long.

And while they were kept up there, the Marshals and the FBI agents went through their homes, followed by the BIA police, who stole everything of value in their homes. It wasn't very much there, as you must know, but a camera or a radio and then not content with stealing everything in the homes, they then smashed the furniture and broke the windows and kicked in the doors.

And then when that was finished, before the people were allowed to go back to their homes, CBS, NBC, and ABC were taken on a tour of the homes by the federal Marshals and FBI agents, and that's where you saw the pictures on television of the broken down homes and the broken windows as the Marshals and FBI agents explained to the national audience, you see what AIM did when they came in and destroyed the people's homes? And that's how the facts about Wounded Knee got to the American people. And so when Judge Bogue tells us that we are not to talk about the facts because it somehow would prejudice the case, we feel committed to pay no attention to his rule.

[APPLAUSE]

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Angela Davis, one of the featured speakers at the rally, related some of the events surrounding her own recent conspiracy trial. And then she reacted to the John Birch convention, a meeting being held in downtown Minneapolis at the time of her speech.

ANGELA DAVIS: The John Birch Society is really not what it presumes to be. It presumes to criticize the government indeed. And it may be true. They might think that the government is too soft, too conservative, not violent enough, not racist enough, not fascist enough. But the government needs the John Birch Society. The US government depends on the John Birch Society as a very important weapon.

Remember, they talked about the dirty tricks department? This Watergate story, they uncovered the existence of this dirty tricks department. The plumbers, you know, who broke into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office out in California? Well, I think that objectively, at least, the John Birch Society fits very well into that concept of a dirty tricks department.

And you see, it's important in trying to understand the role that they play because the government couldn't very well publish a vicious, racist piece of literature like this-- Renegades. The Second Battle of Wounded Knee. But the John Birch Society can publish it. The John Birch Society can do a lot of things that the government would not dare do above board. And so that is why we have to see them as furthering a conspiracy that is deeply rooted in the official US government policy towards the Indian people.

Of course, they use exactly the same methods as Senator Joe McCarthy used some years ago when he was running around trying to ravage the country with his cries of communism. They use anticommunism as the major weapon in their arsenal. And what they do is they, first of all, try to evoke in the minds of the masses of people an image of a communist menace, which is some kind of monstrous cancer. They try to frighten and terrorize the people.

So of course, they're totally misrepresenting what communism is all about. And if they want to talk about communism-- see, I'm a communist and I've never made any secret about the fact that I'm a communist.

[APPLAUSE]

They use communism to define everyone who is not racist and who is not fascist. But this John Birch Society has decided to launch a racist campaign against the American Indian Movement. They are trying to whip up racist anticommunist hysteria. But I think that the fact that they deem the American Indian Movement to be such a threat, that they have to try to build this mass campaign against them tells us something about AIM and what AIM has been doing.

That is to say-- I think it tells us that AIM has been taking care of business and AIM should be proud to be the target of a attack from people as racist and as fascist as the John Birch Society. Because it says that AIM is where the struggle is at. AIM is leading the people towards liberation. And that is why the John Birch Society has to attack AIM in such an all out manner.

[APPLAUSE]

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Russell Means, a Sioux from Pine Ridge, described the American Indian Movement first as a spiritual force and then as a political movement. He described as well the Indian treaty, under which AIM based its occupation of Wounded Knee earlier this year, and he compared Indian treaties with treaties America has made with Germany, Vietnam, and other powers.

RUSSELL MEANS: Senator Sam Ervin, the acknowledged senatorial expert on constitutional law, stood up. And without referring to Indian peoples specifically, he stated that treaties made by the United States of America and ratified by the Congress is on par and equal to the Constitution of the United states, the law of the land. Therefore, those treaties supersede executive decisions, legislation, laws of the federal government and of state governments. And that is our defense, is the 1868 treaty ratified and declared April 29, 1869.

Now, the 1868 Sioux treaty was made at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. It was made after the Teton, Lakota, the Northern Cheyenne, and the Arapaho militarily defeated the United States of America. We closed the Bozeman Trail to the Montana gold fields and forced them to remove five forts from our country. So the United States of America sued for peace with the Lakota people, the Northern Cheyenne, and the Arapaho, and the result was the 1868 Sioux treaty.

But you see, we come from a different culture. And because we were the victors, we believe in generosity to the vanquished. So we gave the United States of America Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota in our generosity. I believe it is time, along with my fellow members in the American Indian Movement, that it is time for Mr. Red Man to enter into the international community.

[APPLAUSE]

And if I become president of the Independent Oglala Nation, right now it's known as the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, what we will do, we'll take the first steps to eradicate the United States of America's influence from within our land. The methods, of course, depend on the cooperation of various countries that we are in the process of already talking to, various countries around the world who will recognize our sovereignty under the 1868 treaty and deal with us on a sovereign basis, deal with us as international partners.

If their cooperation is assured, then when I become president, I will abolish that office. I will abolish the tribal council, the tribal constitution, the Indian Reorganization Act, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Public Health Service, the white ranchers, and the white farmers of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

[APPLAUSE]

Then we will sit down in diplomatic negotiations with the United States of America to settle up for the western half of South Dakota, retroactive to 1868.

[APPLAUSE]

Because I know, as I said, that we are the ancestors of those yet unborn. And I prefer to die fighting than to submit to the slavery of the United States.

[APPLAUSE]

I will leave you with what Chief Seattle said when he was beaten but not conquered, when he was being forced to move off his fatherland into a concentration camp, Chief Seattle in the state of Washington. Chief Seattle said to his victors, those generals, he said, "Nation follows nation and tribe follows tribe. It is like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. For even the white man's god who walked and talked with him as friend with friend could not escape the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see."

[APPLAUSE]

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: The common emphasis in all the speeches at the U of M rally was the need to focus support for the defendants in the upcoming Wounded Knee trials, trials quite likely to take place in Minneapolis's federal court. The appearance of Angela Davis speaking on behalf of the Wounded Knee defendants may signal a new political strategy, not only with respect to those trials and their preparation, but also a new strategy attempting to revitalize community groups across the nation and to rejoin the many which died or splintered off in the late 1960s.

Perhaps the most notable attempt of its kind to create a single power base by bringing together diverse groups was Reverend Ralph Abernathy's Poor People's Campaign several years ago in Washington, DC. Abernathy failed, perhaps because infighting within specific groups precluded the emergence of an overall unity of purpose from the larger campaign.

Today in late 1973, some years later, another major attempt is being made to coalesce many smaller movements into a larger one. In between the rally speeches at the University of Minnesota, appeals were made for farm workers and for Cesar Chavez's La Raza, as well as for many other related causes.

In addition, AIM, which has been fiercely separatist in much of its five-year history, asked for and received the support of the National Alliance to combat racism and political oppression, an organization claiming the membership of over 250 groups across America. Whether a strong, central, multiracial civil rights movement will now emerge is speculative at this point.

Abernathy's coalition attempts may well have failed because they did not appeal to the equitable self-interest of all community-based movements which were solicited. The central issue then was poverty. The context was economics. But the group leaders could not seem to muster the necessary support of their respective constituencies.

If now, with the rise of the American Indian Movement and the attention of the upcoming Wounded Knee trials, Indian people are to become the focal point for a new Poor People's movement, several questions will have to be asked. How large is the support for the American Indian Movement spokesmen among Indian people?

What effect will the AIM strategy of offensive treaty litigation have on poor people who are non-Indian? And finally, can a strong and effective coalition of poor whites, Chicanos, Blacks, and Indians emerge which will reflect mutual benefits to all parties concerned? This is Kevin McKiernan.