"You Can Only Kick So Long..."
American Indian Movement leadership in Nebraska 1972-1979
by W. Dale Mason
Reprinted with Permission-Originally Printed in Journal of the West 1984
Following the "re-occupation" of Alcatraz Island by Federal authorities in late 1971 after a two-year "occupation" by Indians living near San Francisco, the emerging nationwide Indian movement entered a new phase. Between the mid-1960s and 1971 there had been numerous "fish-ins" and seizures of Federal property by young Indian activists. Many of these acts of direct confrontation occurred without a great deal of planning. They often lacked a broad base of support among the Indian people living in the areas where they took place. Alcatraz itself was not of major concern to many indigenous California Indians. The impetus for the occupation of the Island had come from Indian college students living in the Bay Area led by Richard Oaks, a 27 year-old Mohawk from the St.Regis Reservation in New York. What was needed was an incident that could be exploited locally and used by activist leaders as a local as well as national organizing tool. Sioux author Vine Deloria, Jr., had seen this early on. In Custer Died For Your Sins Deloria had observed that unless Indian activists placed more emphasis on exploiting local situations they would not have much impact. (*1) During 1972 and 1973 the American Indian Movement (AIM) was able to do this effectively in several instances, most notably in Gordon, Nebraska, and on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The New York Times had called Gordon, Nebraska a "White Man's Town." (*2) But in the 1970s it played a significant role in the new movement of activism among American Indians. Here in early 1972 the American Indian Movement made its first major impact in a non-urban setting, and here, throughout most of the 1970s there occurred a continuing series of confrontations between local authorities and a small group of supporters of the American Indian Movement.
Located fifteen miles from the South Dakota border, Gordon is a small (population 2,200) rural town not unlike countless others throughout the Plains. But it is a "border town" and that fact dominates much of how life is conducted there. Roughly ten percent of Gordons population is Indian, but that fluctuates as people come and go across the border to the Pine Ridge Reservation. Indians come to Gordon to look for work and to shop. The near total absence of places to shop on the Reservation and the prohibition of the sale of alcohol there brings a steady flow of Indians to Gordon and other nearby towns. According to former Oglala Sioux Tribal Chairman Albert Trimble, 90 percent of the income earned in the village of Pine Ridge is spent in Nebraska. Trimble admitted that he had borrowed money from a Nebraska bank in order to run for Tribal Chairman. Indians had for years charged that economic discrimination and a dual standard of justice existed in the Nebraska Panhandle. There were charges by Indians of police brutality, and accusations that Indians were arrested far in excess of their population percentage. The American Indian Movement became involved in Gordon and the issues came to a head in early March 1972 following the discovery of the body of Raymond Yellow Thunder, a 51 year-old Lakota Sioux from Pine Ridge. On the evening of 12 February, during a Saturday night dance in the Gordon American Legion Hall, Yellow Thunder was stripped of his pants and pushed into the Hall while the dance was underway. Eight days later two young boys found his body in the cab of a pick-up truck in a Gordon used car lot. An autopsy attributed his death to a cerebral hemorrhage. He had been dead for more than two days. Sheridan County Attorney Michael V. Smith called the incident at the American Legion Hall "a very cruel practical joke."(*3)
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American Indian Movement leadership in Nebraska 1972-1979
by W. Dale Mason
Reprinted with Permission-Originally Printed in Journal of the West 1984
Following the "re-occupation" of Alcatraz Island by Federal authorities in late 1971 after a two-year "occupation" by Indians living near San Francisco, the emerging nationwide Indian movement entered a new phase. Between the mid-1960s and 1971 there had been numerous "fish-ins" and seizures of Federal property by young Indian activists. Many of these acts of direct confrontation occurred without a great deal of planning. They often lacked a broad base of support among the Indian people living in the areas where they took place. Alcatraz itself was not of major concern to many indigenous California Indians. The impetus for the occupation of the Island had come from Indian college students living in the Bay Area led by Richard Oaks, a 27 year-old Mohawk from the St.Regis Reservation in New York. What was needed was an incident that could be exploited locally and used by activist leaders as a local as well as national organizing tool. Sioux author Vine Deloria, Jr., had seen this early on. In Custer Died For Your Sins Deloria had observed that unless Indian activists placed more emphasis on exploiting local situations they would not have much impact. (*1) During 1972 and 1973 the American Indian Movement (AIM) was able to do this effectively in several instances, most notably in Gordon, Nebraska, and on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The New York Times had called Gordon, Nebraska a "White Man's Town." (*2) But in the 1970s it played a significant role in the new movement of activism among American Indians. Here in early 1972 the American Indian Movement made its first major impact in a non-urban setting, and here, throughout most of the 1970s there occurred a continuing series of confrontations between local authorities and a small group of supporters of the American Indian Movement.
Located fifteen miles from the South Dakota border, Gordon is a small (population 2,200) rural town not unlike countless others throughout the Plains. But it is a "border town" and that fact dominates much of how life is conducted there. Roughly ten percent of Gordons population is Indian, but that fluctuates as people come and go across the border to the Pine Ridge Reservation. Indians come to Gordon to look for work and to shop. The near total absence of places to shop on the Reservation and the prohibition of the sale of alcohol there brings a steady flow of Indians to Gordon and other nearby towns. According to former Oglala Sioux Tribal Chairman Albert Trimble, 90 percent of the income earned in the village of Pine Ridge is spent in Nebraska. Trimble admitted that he had borrowed money from a Nebraska bank in order to run for Tribal Chairman. Indians had for years charged that economic discrimination and a dual standard of justice existed in the Nebraska Panhandle. There were charges by Indians of police brutality, and accusations that Indians were arrested far in excess of their population percentage. The American Indian Movement became involved in Gordon and the issues came to a head in early March 1972 following the discovery of the body of Raymond Yellow Thunder, a 51 year-old Lakota Sioux from Pine Ridge. On the evening of 12 February, during a Saturday night dance in the Gordon American Legion Hall, Yellow Thunder was stripped of his pants and pushed into the Hall while the dance was underway. Eight days later two young boys found his body in the cab of a pick-up truck in a Gordon used car lot. An autopsy attributed his death to a cerebral hemorrhage. He had been dead for more than two days. Sheridan County Attorney Michael V. Smith called the incident at the American Legion Hall "a very cruel practical joke."(*3)
Read more of article by clicking link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20091027062155/www.geocities.com/lakotastudentalliance/lsa2_onlykicksolong.html
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