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- In 1968, after a stint in the Air Force in Japan that ended with Banks going AWOL, and two and a half years in jail on a burglary rap, he helped found the American Indian Movement (AIM) to advance the interests of Native Americans.
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Dec 28, 2017 · By FRANCIS WILKINSON. Dennis Banks in 1973, in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Credit Bettman/Getty Images. Dennis Banks, whose Ojibwa (Chippewa)...
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Dennis Banks, (born April 12, 1937, Leech Lake Reservation, Minnesota, U.S.—died October 29, 2017, Rochester, Minnesota), Ojibwe activist and a founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), a prominent Native rights organization. Banks led high-profile protests that increased awareness about the U.S. government’s long history of mistreatment of Na...
Banks was born on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. His Ojibwe name was Nowa-Cumig (meaning “in the centre”), and he was a member of the Turtle Clan. He was raised in poverty by his grandparents, and, when he was just five years old, he was taken away from them and sent to a boarding school for Native children. He attended a series ...
Banks was released from prison in 1968. Once free, he, along with Clyde Bellecourt (an Ojibwe man he met in prison) and others, founded the American Indian Movement (AIM). The original purpose of the group was to help the Native people of Minneapolis adjust to urban life. However, as AIM membership grew, so did the goals of the organization. AIM would soon become known nationwide for its bold advocacy of Native rights. In 1969 Banks met Russell Means, and the two became AIM’s most prominent leaders.
Banks and other members of AIM joined a group called the Indians of All Tribes in an 18-month occupation of Alcatraz Island that began in November 1969. AIM next achieved notoriety with a Thanksgiving Day protest in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1970. Banks and Means declared that the holiday should be a national day of mourning for everything Native peoples had lost since the arrival of European settlers in the Americas. Some AIM members took over a replica of the Mayflower, the ship that carried the Pilgrims. In 1972 Banks and Means organized the Trail of Broken Treaties, in which hundreds of Native activists traveled in a cross-country car caravan to Washington, D.C. The leaders of the protest planned to meet with government officials to demand the recognition of Native rights. When they arrived in Washington, D.C., however, the meetings were canceled. AIM members then occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs building for six days.
Banks and Means organized another protest in 1973. They led about 200 AIM members and their allies in the occupation of Wounded Knee, a town on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Wounded Knee was the site of an 1890 massacre in which U.S. troops killed as many as 300 Lakota Sioux. Banks and AIM wanted to call attention to local corruption on the Pine Ridge Reservation as well as the ongoing mistreatment of Native peoples. Federal authorities surrounded the town, beginning a tense standoff that lasted more than two months. Two activists were killed by gunfire, and one federal marshal was seriously wounded. Banks and Means were tried for their roles in the occupation, but the case against them was eventually dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.
Banks still faced trial, however, for another incident. Just weeks before the Wounded Knee occupation began, Banks had led AIM members in a confrontation with police in Custer, South Dakota. They were protesting because a white man had killed a Native man in a fight but had not been charged with murder. Rather, he had been charged with involuntary manslaughter, a less serious offense. The protest turned into a riot, and Banks was charged with rioting and assault. He was found guilty in 1975.
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Following the verdict, Banks fled. He spent nine years as a fugitive, first in California and then in New York. In 1984 he returned to South Dakota, turned himself in, and served 14 months in prison. Upon his release he moved to the Pine Ridge Reservation and became a counselor for residents with addictions to drugs or alcohol. In later years Banks...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Brigit Katz. Correspondent. October 31, 2017. American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks Jim West / Alamy Stock Photo. Dennis Banks, the fiery and divisive activist who co-founded the...
Oct 8, 2012 · Vea/Lea en español. On “Columbus Day” — known to many as Indigenous Peoples Day — we’re joined by Dennis Banks, a legendary Native American activist from the Ojibwe Tribe. In 1968, he...
Nov 6, 2017 · Nick Estes. Julian Brave NoiseCat. In a world where Native people had little power, American Indian Movement cofounder Dennis Banks was a force. Naawakamig — “In the Center of the Universe ” — was his Anishinaabe name. But to most, he was known by his Anglo name: Dennis J. Banks.
May 21, 2018 · Native American activist, organizer, and protest leader Dennis Banks (Nowacumig) helped found the influential american indian movement (AIM). Under his passionate leadership in the late 1960s and early 1970s, AIM championed Native American self-sufficiency, traditions, and values.
Nov 1, 2016 · Native American activist Dennis Banks, who died Oct. 29 at 80, leaves behind a legacy that includes a reenergized movement that reminded America of its original sins of genocide and deceit, as Dennis J Bernstein reports. By Dennis J Bernstein.
