Wounded Knee over but fight still on

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33433, 15 January 1974, Page 16

Wounded Knee over but fight still on

<By

JAMES P. STERBA)

When the beleaguered American Indian Movement ended its 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee. South Dakota, on May 8. its leaders vowed to continue fighting, violently if necessary, for ■ Indian rights. . For a moment the moveiment had caught the attenjtion of the American public. It reaped scorn from lsome, sympathy from others. Many saw it as the leader of a new national rights moveiment, similar to the civil j rights struggle of the early 19605. Now, with the headlines captured by the White House, Watergate and war. the Indian rights movement appears to have all but vanished. It hasn’t, of course. But, its path to national promi- [ nence has been consistently' blocked by internal bickering, legal tangles and a host of problems unique to the American Indian community. There is no shortage of issues. Treaties are violated. Poverty is rampant. Resources are plundered. Towns close to Indian settlements fill their court dock’ets with Indian drunks. And ■ Indian children continue to be taught that George Washington is the father of their i country. Shortage of Indians If anything. however, I Ithere is a shortage of In-1

dians. The leaders of the civil rights movement had a working constituency of more than 20 million black people. Indian leaders have only 843,000 people, or less than .5 per cent of the population of the United States. Also. Indians are scattered and isolated. Half live on or near reservations and the rest live in cities and small towns across the country.

There is no Watts for Indians, where frustrations can explode conveniently enough i both to alarm local whites and alert the nightly tele- ; vision news shows. It is difficult to riot when your (neighbour lives ten miles I down a dusty reservation trail. There are more than 300 reservations and other Indian land units totaling 55.4 •’million acres around the United Stales. The area is: ‘ about the size of Utah, and generally as barren. Little attention Reservation dwellers have (precious little clout in (Washington. As Leon F. [Cook, past president of the: ’National Congress of Ameri-) can Indians, says: “The Indian gets less attention than pelicans, bald eagles, whooping cranes and coral reefs.” ’ In fact, Indian affairs in ’Washington are largely managed by the Department of’ ’the Interior, the agency responsible for national parks, forests, fish and wildlife. Then, because 263 tribes ’and villages in the continental United States and about | 300 native Alaskan commun- ’ ities, with dozens of different languages and cultures, all compete for Federal aid, bickering between tribes is endless. Competition within tribes for positions close to that money is divisive, and militancy by tribal leaders is .frowned upon by those in the Bureau of Indian Affairs I who dispense these funds. The result, say the few moneyless militants, is a divided national Indian leadership populated by Uncle Tomahawks, or “apples,” red on the outside, white on the inside. Tribal elections are noli geared towards uniting In-1 . dians nationally, but rather• ’towards electing representa- 1 )fives who can get the most, .for their tribes out of) ’’the Federal Indian budget.: Thus, when the American I 'lndian Movement emerged’

’out of Minneapolis, where jits initial concern had been ’police discrimination against • city Indians, some reservation chiefs saw it as an upi start group dipping another ’finger into the monetary pie. City slickers And when A.I.M. leaders .supported by meagre church ’grants, moved west to the (Sioux reservation to focus .attention on establishment abuse of Indians, they were ’treated like city slickers. A.I.M. met with stiff opposition not only from the vested tribal leadership, but from Federal marshals and ) Bureau of Indian Affairs ’ police charged with maintaining law and order as well. But a ready constituency of young people listened and joined. The A.I.M. take-over of the 1 Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington : last year and the siege at Wounded Knee seven months ago appeared to give young frustrated Indians a leadership model they could not find among tribal leaders who wore white men’s clothes ,or among tribal elders debilitated by alcoholism. What followed, as Wounded Knee and its aftermath got the attention, was a little-publicised revolt in Ind i a n-populated schools around the United States over such simple issues as hair and dress codes.

Many school systems, whose textbooks picture Indians with long hair, expel Indian students attempting

ito dress like their ancestors, i In several schools, Indian [students walked out, or. sat 'in. They demanded Indian teachers, Indian language ’classes, Indian culture studies.

At Window Rock. Arizona, a ruckus that resulted when a long-haired Indian was kicked off the football team, led to the hiring of the school system’s first Indian ’superintendent. The leaders of the American Indian Movement now face long criminal trials i stemming from Wounded Knee and other demonstrations. They claim they are hounded by the Federal Bureau of investigation and they are locked in a power struggle on the Oglala Sioux reservation, the site of Wounded Knee, with Sioux leaders opposed to their tactics.

But on the Sioux reservation and in other Indian! communities around the country, a new sense of: pride and purpose is growing. Young Indians embrac-j ing the American Indian Movement are beginning to have an influence on their elders. And with two thirds of the Indian population under 25 years of age, the elders may be forced to lis- 1 ten. — (Copyright, “New York Times” news service).