It’s been half a century since Clyde Bellecourt founded the American Indian Movement, which has worked to protect the rights of Native Americans across the country and make sure the United States fulfills its treaties with Native American nations. Now, Bellecourt is coming to Tucson to celebrate this milestone with a talk and book signing.
During the talk, Bellecourt, who is also the national director of AIM, will discuss the movement’s past and future. He’ll also speak about cultural stereotypes and share insight into his experiences with other AIM leaders and activists. After the talk, he will sign copies of his autobiography, Thunder Before the Storm. The 2016 biography chronicles Bellecourt’s childhood on a Minnesota reservation as well as his history of activism and advocacy.
Bellecourt, whose Native American name is Nee Gon Nway Wee Dung, was born on White Earth Chippewa Reservation in the Ojibwe tribe in 1936. Bellecourt was one of the founders of AIM during its rise in the late 1960s, when indigenous people began to organize to advocate for their rights.
Bellecourt has also founded or co-founded other organizations that further his work as an activist in the United States: The Heart of the Earth Survival School, the first culturally-based education program under parent control in the country; the Legal Rights Center, which provides criminal
defense and restorative justice services to people with low income; and the Minneapolis Indian Health Board, the country’s first urban Indian program. Bellecourt also works on changing racist mascot names and school names throughout the country as a current coordinator of the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media.
“Clyde Bellecourt Speaks – American Indian Movement: Past, Present and Future” will take place 3 to 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 3 at the Sea of Glass Center for the Arts, 330 E. 7th St. Tickets are $25 in advance of $35 the day of the event. For tickets, call (520) 398-2542. Proceeds from the event support AIM and local nonprofit service programs. Content appropriate for ages 14 and up.
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2018.
At the beginning of the 17th century, there were approximately one hundred (100) independent indigenous populations of Native Americans speaking eight (8) different language groups in what is now the United States of America.
Native Americans had their own language, culture, and religious beliefs. They were cast as non-Christian infidels and uncivilized because of these differences. They also had land, in fact the entire North American Continent, that the emigrating hordes of European barbarians, and their equally barbaric decedents, coveted. In fact, some of our “founding fathers” enriched themselves as land speculators.
These human beings were systematically exterminated, initially by Spain, France, Great Britain, Holland, and Russia, and subsequently by successive generations of European settlers, as well as by the policies of early state (Senator/Governor Wilson Lumpkin of Georgia) and federal administrations (Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson).
The Final Solution
“..In looking back upon the early condition of the Indians, we have no reason to doubt but that they enjoyed a fair proportion of happiness. They had land enough to roam over, and game enough to pursue…In general, the evidence of (a) declension in the aboriginal population is embodied in the history and progress of our settlements; and the causes which heretofore preceded it are yet in active operation, and are extending their sphere as we extend our intercourse and communications with them….Judging of the future by the past, we cannot err in anticipating a progressive diminution of their numbers, and their eventual extinction…”(Indian Affairs: Laws and Reulations (with Commentary). Submitted to Congress by William Clark and Lewis Cass, 1829).
A Commentary on United States Policy and Native Americans
“..The Americans of the United States achieved both results (to deprive Indians of their rights and their extermination) with marvelous ease, quietly, legally…To destroy human beings with greater respect for the laws of humanity would be impossible…” (Democracy in America, Alexis deTocqueville, 1835)
Wow Francis, I never knew that (rolls eyes)
The question isn’t how much guilt we can feel about the past, but what can we do for real live Indians today who aren’t helped much by liberal white folks ruminating in guilt.
well, we are waiting on some examples of Conservative help?
Churches are full of conservatives that promote mission work that provides help for indigenous peoples.I wish they were not ostracized for leaving the reservations. They must have learned that from the tolerant democratic party.