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American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement founded in Minneapolis in July 1968. Initially centered in urban areas to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians, AIM soon widened its scope to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
AIM was organized by Native American men who had been serving time together in prison. Some of the experiences that Native men in AIM shared were boarding school education, military service, and the disorienting urban experience.
They had been alienated from their traditional backgrounds as a result of the United States' Public Law 959 Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which supported thousands of American Indians who wanted to move from reservations to cities, in an attempt to enable them to have more economic opportunities for work. In addition, Public Law 280, one of the first major laws contributing to U.S. Indian termination policy, proposed to terminate the federal government's relations with several tribes which were determined to be far along the path of assimilation. These policies were enacted by the United States Congress under its plenary power. As a result, nearly 70% of American Indians left their communal homelands on reservations and relocated to urban centers, many in hopes of finding economic sustainability. While many Urban Indians struggled with displacement and such radically different settings, some also began to organize in pan-Indian groups in urban centers. They were described as transnationals. The American Indian Movement formed in such urbanized contexts at a time of increasing Indian activism.
From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM participated in the occupation of the abandoned federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island organized by seven Indian movements, including the Indians of All Tribes and Richard Oakes, a Mohawk activist.[citation needed] In October 1972, AIM and other Indian groups gathered members from across the United States for a protest in Washington, D.C., known as the Trail of Broken Treaties. Public documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal advanced coordination occurred between federal Bureau of Indian Affairs staff and the authors of a twenty-point proposal. The proposal was drafted with the help of the AIM for delivery to the United States government officials. Its focused on proposals intended to enhance U.S.–Indian relations.
In the decades since AIM's founding, the group has led protests advocating indigenous American interests, inspired cultural renewal, monitored police activities, and coordinated employment programs in cities and in rural reservation communities across the United States. They have also allied with indigenous interests outside the United States.
A U.S. government policy directive from 1940 to the early 1960s, under multiple executive administrations (both Democrat and Republican), led to the establishment of uranium mining operations across Navajo tribal lands. These operations often provided the only employment opportunities for Navajo people in isolated areas, and Navajo workers were initially enthusiastic about employment. The U.S. government, though, appears to have known about the harmful risks associated with uranium mining since the 1930s but neglected to inform the Navajo communities. In addition, most Navajo workers did not speak English. They had no knowledge of radiation, nor a translation for the word in their language.
Both the open and other now abandoned uranium mines continue to poison and pollute the land, water, and air of Navajo communities today. Clean-up has been slow even after environmental laws were passed and the dangers assessed. As a result, the Navajo people believe that the federal government has violated the Treaty of 1868, which assigned the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide services that safeguard their health.
On March 6, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11399, establishing the National Council on Indian Opportunity (NCIO). President Johnson announced in his Special Message to the Congress on the Problems of the American Indian, "[T]he time has come to focus our efforts on the plight of the American Indian," and that the NCIO's formation would "launch an undivided, Government-wide effort in this area." Johnson tried to connect the nation's trust responsibility to the tribes and nations to contemporary African American civil rights issues, an area with which he was much more familiar.
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American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement founded in Minneapolis in July 1968. Initially centered in urban areas to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians, AIM soon widened its scope to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
AIM was organized by Native American men who had been serving time together in prison. Some of the experiences that Native men in AIM shared were boarding school education, military service, and the disorienting urban experience.
They had been alienated from their traditional backgrounds as a result of the United States' Public Law 959 Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which supported thousands of American Indians who wanted to move from reservations to cities, in an attempt to enable them to have more economic opportunities for work. In addition, Public Law 280, one of the first major laws contributing to U.S. Indian termination policy, proposed to terminate the federal government's relations with several tribes which were determined to be far along the path of assimilation. These policies were enacted by the United States Congress under its plenary power. As a result, nearly 70% of American Indians left their communal homelands on reservations and relocated to urban centers, many in hopes of finding economic sustainability. While many Urban Indians struggled with displacement and such radically different settings, some also began to organize in pan-Indian groups in urban centers. They were described as transnationals. The American Indian Movement formed in such urbanized contexts at a time of increasing Indian activism.
From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM participated in the occupation of the abandoned federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island organized by seven Indian movements, including the Indians of All Tribes and Richard Oakes, a Mohawk activist.[citation needed] In October 1972, AIM and other Indian groups gathered members from across the United States for a protest in Washington, D.C., known as the Trail of Broken Treaties. Public documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal advanced coordination occurred between federal Bureau of Indian Affairs staff and the authors of a twenty-point proposal. The proposal was drafted with the help of the AIM for delivery to the United States government officials. Its focused on proposals intended to enhance U.S.–Indian relations.
In the decades since AIM's founding, the group has led protests advocating indigenous American interests, inspired cultural renewal, monitored police activities, and coordinated employment programs in cities and in rural reservation communities across the United States. They have also allied with indigenous interests outside the United States.
A U.S. government policy directive from 1940 to the early 1960s, under multiple executive administrations (both Democrat and Republican), led to the establishment of uranium mining operations across Navajo tribal lands. These operations often provided the only employment opportunities for Navajo people in isolated areas, and Navajo workers were initially enthusiastic about employment. The U.S. government, though, appears to have known about the harmful risks associated with uranium mining since the 1930s but neglected to inform the Navajo communities. In addition, most Navajo workers did not speak English. They had no knowledge of radiation, nor a translation for the word in their language.
Both the open and other now abandoned uranium mines continue to poison and pollute the land, water, and air of Navajo communities today. Clean-up has been slow even after environmental laws were passed and the dangers assessed. As a result, the Navajo people believe that the federal government has violated the Treaty of 1868, which assigned the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide services that safeguard their health.
On March 6, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11399, establishing the National Council on Indian Opportunity (NCIO). President Johnson announced in his Special Message to the Congress on the Problems of the American Indian, "[T]he time has come to focus our efforts on the plight of the American Indian," and that the NCIO's formation would "launch an undivided, Government-wide effort in this area." Johnson tried to connect the nation's trust responsibility to the tribes and nations to contemporary African American civil rights issues, an area with which he was much more familiar.
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