| Russell Means | |
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Russell Means in 1987. |
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| Born | Russell Charles Means November 10, 1939 Wanblee, South Dakota, United States |
| Occupation | Activist, politician, actor, writer, musician |
| Years active | 1968 – present |
| Spouse | Gloria Grant Means (three previous marriages) A total of 10 children, two with Gloria |
Russell Charles Means (born November 10, 1939) is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage. The organization split in 1993, in part over the 1975 murder of Anna Mae Aquash, the leading woman activist in AIM.[1]
Means has been active in international issues of indigenous peoples, including working with groups in Central and South America, and with the United Nations for recognition of their rights. He has been active in politics at his native Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and at the state and national level.
Since 1992, he has acted in numerous films and released his own music CD. He published his autobiography Where White Men Fear to Tread in 1997.
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Means was born in Wanblee, South Dakota, a community located in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, to Theodora Feather and Harold "Hank" Means.[2] He was baptized Oyate Wacinyapin, which means "works for the people" in the Lakota language. His Oglala Sioux parents met as students at an Indian boarding school.[2]
In 1942 when Russell was three, the Means family resettled in the San Francisco Bay Area, seeking to escape the poverty and problems of the reservation. His father worked at the shipyard. Means grew up in the Bay area, graduating in 1958 from San Leandro High School in San Leandro, California.[3] In his 1995 autobiography, Means recounted a harsh childhood; his father was alcoholic and he himself fell into years of "truancy, crime and drugs" before finding purpose in the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis.[4]
His father died in 1967, and Means in his 20s lived in several Indian reservations throughout the United States while searching for work. While at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in south-central South Dakota, he developed severe vertigo. Physicians at the reservation clinic believed that he had been brought in inebriated. After they refused to examine him for several days, Means was finally diagnosed with a concussion due to a presumed fist fight in a saloon. A visiting specialist later discovered that the reservation doctors had overlooked a common ear infection, which cost Means the hearing in one ear.[5]
After recovering from the infection, Means worked for a year in the Office of Economic Opportunity, where he came to know several legal activists who were managing legal action on behalf of the Lakota people. After a dispute with his supervisor, Means left Rosebud for Cleveland, Ohio. In Cleveland, he worked with Native American community leaders against the backdrop of the American Civil Rights Movement.[5]
Means participated -together with his father- in the 1964 Alcatraz occupation. In 1968 at age 29, Means joined the American Indian Movement, where he rose to become a prominent leader.[6] In 1970, Means was appointed AIM's first national director, and the organization began a period of increasing protests and activism. On Thanksgiving Day 1970, Means and other AIM activists staged their first protest in Boston: they seized the Mayflower II, a replica ship of the Mayflower, to protest the Puritans' and United States' mistreatment of Native Americans.[7] Later that year, Means was one of the leaders of AIM's takeover of Mount Rushmore, a federal monument. In 1972, he participated in AIM's occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) headquarters in Washington, D.C. Many confidential records were taken or destroyed, and more than $2 million in damages was done to the building.
In 1973, Dennis Banks and Charles Camp led AIM's occupation of Wounded Knee, which became the group's most well-known action. [7] Means appeared as a spokesman and prominent leader as well. The armed standoff of more than 300 Lakota and AIM activists with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and state law enforcement lasted for 71 days. A visiting Cherokee from North Carolina and an Oglala Lakota activist from Pine Ridge Reservation were killed in April 1973. Earlier an FBI agent was shot and became paralyzed from his wounds.
In 1974, Means resigned from AIM to run for the presidency of his native Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) against the incumbent Richard Wilson. The official vote count showed Wilson winning by more than 200 votes. Residents complained of intimidation by Wilson's private militia. The report of a government investigation confirmed problems in the election, but in a related court challenge to the results of the election, a federal court upheld the results.
In the late 1970s, Means turned to an international forum on issues of rights for indigenous peoples. He worked with the United Nations to establish the offices of the International Indian Treaty Council in 1977. At the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he assisted in the organization of community institutions, such as the KILI radio station and the Porcupine Health Clinic in Porcupine, South Dakota.
In the 1980s, AIM divided into several competing factions. The division was in part over differences among members regarding support for the indigenous peoples in Nicaragua, a nation then led by a socialist government. Means announced his support for the Miskito group MISURASATA (later known as YATAMA), which was allied with the Contras. He traveled to the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua in 1985 and 1986 on fact-finding tours. Some members of AIM supported the Sandinistas of the national government, although they had forced removal of thousands of Miskito from their traditional territory. At that time, the Grand Governing Council of AIM, based in Minnesota, asked Means to cease representing himself as a leader of AIM. Other chapters of AIM continued to support Means.
On January 8, 1988, Means held a press conference to announce his retirement from AIM (for the sixth time), saying it had achieved its goals.[8] That January, the AIM Grand Governing Council, headed by the Bellecourt brothers, released a press release noting this was the sixth resignation by Means since 1974, and asking the press to "never again report either that he is a founder of the American Indian Movement, or [that] he is a leader of the American Indian Movement". The AIM General Governing Council noted there were many open issues and legislation regarding Native Americans for which they were continuing to work.[9]
In 1993, the organization divided officially into two main factions: AIM Grand Governing Council, based in Minnesota, which has the legal right to use the name; and American Indian Movement of Colorado, based in Colorado and allied with Means.
On 3 November 1999, Means and Robert Pictou-Branscombe, a maternal cousin of Aquash from Canada, held a press conference in Denver at the Federal Building to discuss the slow progress of the government's investigation into Aquash's murder. It had been under investigation both by the Denver police, as Aquash had been kidnapped from there, and by the FBI, as she had been taken across state lines and killed on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Both Branscombe and Means accused Vernon Bellecourt, a high-ranking leader of AIM, of having ordered the execution of Aquash. Means said that Clyde Bellecourt, a founder of AIM, had ensured that it was carried out at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Means said that an AIM tribunal had banned the Bellecourt brothers but tried to keep the reason for the dissension internal to protect AIM.[10]
The Associated Press (AP) reporter Robert Weller noted that this was the first time that an AIM leader active at the time of Aquash's death had publicly implicated AIM in her murder. There had long been rumors.[11] Means and Branscombe accused three indigenous people: Arlo Looking Cloud, Theda Nelson Clark and John Graham, of having been directly involved in the kidnapping and murder of Aquash.[10] The two men were indicted in 2003 and convicted in separate trials in 2004 and 2010, respectively. By then in a nursing home, Clark was not indicted.
As of 2004, Means' website states that he was a board member of the Colorado AIM chapter, which is affiliated with AIM-Autonomous Chapters.[12]
Since the late 1970s, Means has often supported libertarian political causes, in contrast with several of the other leaders of AIM. In 1987, Means ran for nomination of President of the United States under the Libertarian Party, and attracted considerable support within the party (finishing 2nd with 31.41%).[13] He lost the nomination to Congressman Ron Paul.[14]
In 2001, Means began an independent candidacy for Governor of New Mexico. His campaign failed to satisfy procedural requirements and he was not selected for the ballot. In the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections, Means supported independent Ralph Nader.
Nearly thirty years after his first candidacy, Means ran for president of the Oglala Sioux in 2004 with the help of Twila Lebeaux, losing to Cecilia Fire Thunder, the first woman elected president of the tribe. She also defeated the incumbent John Yellow Bird Steele.[15]
Since the late 20th century, there has been a debate in the United States over the appropriate term for the indigenous peoples of North America. Some want to be called Native American; others prefer American Indian. Means says that he prefers "American Indian", arguing that it derives not from explorers' confusion of the people with those of India, but from the Italian expression in Dio, meaning "in God".[16][17] In addition, Means notes that since treaties and other legal documents in relation to the United States government use "Indian", continuing use of the term can help today's American Indian people forestall any attempts by others to use legal loopholes in the struggle over land and treaty rights.
Following the non-binding United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in September 2007, a group of American Indian activists presented a letter to the U.S. State Department, indicating they were withdrawing from all treaties with the U.S. Government. In December, they began contacting foreign governments to solicit support for energy projects on the territory.
On December 20, 2007, Means announced the withdrawal by a small group of Lakota Sioux from all treaties with the United States government.[18] Means and a delegation of activists declared the Republic of Lakotah a sovereign nation, with property rights over thousands of square miles in South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana.[19] Means said that his group does not "represent collaborators, the Vichy Indians and those tribal governments set up by the United States of America".[20]
On January 8, 2008 the elected leaders President Rodney Bordeaux of the 25,000-member Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and Chairman Joseph Brings Plenty of the 8,500-member Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said that Means did not speak for their members or for any elected Lakota tribal governments. While acknowledging problems with the federal government's implementation of treaties, they opposed his plan to renounce treaties with the United States. They said the issue instead was to enforce existing treaties.[21] [22]
Since 1992, Means has appeared as an actor in numerous films and TV movies: first as the chief Chingachgook in The Last of the Mohicans. He appeared as Arrowhead in the made-for-TV movie The Pathfinder (1996), his second appearance in a movie adapted from a novel by James Fenimore Cooper. He appeared in Natural Born Killers (1994), as Jim Thorpe in Windrunner: A Spirited Journey, as Sitting Bull in Buffalo Girls (1995), and had a cameo in the miniseries Into the West (2005).
He was a voice actor in the animated film Pocahontas (1995) and its sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998), playing the title character's father, Chief Powhatan. Means appeared as Billy Twofeathers in Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000).
Means starred in Pathfinder, a 2007 movie about Vikings' battling Native Americans in the New World. Recently Means co-starred in Rez Bomb from director Steven Lewis Simpson, the first feature filmed on his native Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He stars with Tamara Feldman and Trent Ford and Chris Robinson.
He also appears as a character in the Access Adventure Game Under a Killing Moon.[23] In 2004 Means made a guest appearance on the HBO program Curb Your Enthusiasm. Means played Wandering Bear, an American Indian with skills in landscaping and herbal medicine.
In 1995, Means published an autobiography, Where White Men Fear to Tread, written with Marvin J. Wolf. He recounted his own family's problems: his alcoholic father, and his own "fall into truancy, crime and drugs" before he found the American Indian Movement.[4] Writing in the New York Times Book Review, the author Brent Staples said of Means:
"His repeated assertion that Native American culture is cosmologically superior to Europe’s seems patronizing, even coming from an Indian. The first law of the universe, after all, is that evil and stupidity are randomly distributed. Had the Lakota and others been the seers Mr. Means seems to think they were, they would have avoided at least some of the disasters that befell them."[24]
In 1998 Vernon Bellecourt, a longtime leader of AIM, criticized Marvin Wolf for failure to consult with other AIM leaders about events that Means recounted. He said, "Not one of the people in the movement was asked by Means' co-author, Marvin J. Wolf, to confirm Means' version of events. It's a very reckless book. It puts out a lot of inaccuracies and petty attacks on people that are seen as very divisive."[25]
The journalist Malcolm Brenner, who had covered Native American issues for newspapers from the Shiprock, New Mexico area, wrote in his review: "Over and over again, Means makes blanket condemnations of all 'White People' that he would assuredly bust my chops for if I made them about Indians... Readers should understand that this book is Russell Means' version of reality, and it does not necessarily bear any relationship to the truth...Ultimately, this book is a chronicle of Means' bottomless rage..." which Brenner notes may have been justified by "the circumstances of his life in particular or American Indian lives in general," but he thought Means' stance was overdone.[26]
Patricia Holt, book editor for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote of the book, "It's American history -- warts, wounds and all."[4] Mari Wadsworth of the Tucson Weekly wrote, "Critical readers do well to remain skeptical of any individual, however charismatic, who claims to be the voice of authority and authenticity for any population, let alone one as diverse as the native tribes of the Americas."[27]
Russell Means recorded a CD entitled Electric Warrior under indie label SOAR.[28] Songs include "Une Gente Indio", "Hey You, Hey Indian", "Wounded Knee Set Us Free", and "Indian Cars Go Far".
The American pop artist Andy Warhol painted 18 individual portraits of Russell Means in his 1976 American Indian Series. The Dayton Art Institute holds one of the Warhol portraits of Means in its collection.[29]
Means has been married four times; his first three marriages ended in divorce. He has a total of ten children.[2]
Means is married to Gloria (Grant) Means, a Dine educator and former rodeo rider.[2] They have two sons: Tatunka Means, who is an actor, and Nataani Nez Means. Means is also the stepfather of Gloria's son Scott from her previous marriage.
On December 29, 1997, Means was arrested for assault and battery of his 80-year-old father-in-law Leon Grant, a member of the Dine (Navajo) Nation. AIM Governing General Council issued a press release to reiterate its separation from Means.[25]
In August 2011, Means was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.[30][31] In late September, Means reported that through tomotherapy, the tumor had diminished greatly.[32] At the start of November 2011, he said that his tumor was "95% gone." On December 5, Means stated that he "beat cancer," that he beat "the death penalty."
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