Carter Camp

Carter Camp (August 18, 1941, Pawnee, Oklahoma – December 27, 2013, White Eagle, Oklahoma) was an American Indian Movement activist from the Ponca tribe. Camp played a leading role in the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties[1] and was one of the organizers of the Wounded Knee standoff.[1]

In his later years Camp staunchly opposed the construction of the Keystone Pipeline.[1]

Life

Carter Augustus Camp was born to Woodrow Camp and Jewell McDonald in Pawnee, Oklahoma, on August 18, 1941, the third of six children.[2][3][4] His father, Woodrow Camp, was a union activist.[3]

He graduated in 1959 from the Haskell Institute, now known as Haskell Indian Nations University, in Lawrence, Kansas.[2][3]

According to Casey Camp-Horinkek, in 1960–1963 he served as a corporal in the U.S. Army unit, stationed in Berlin.[2][5] He lived in Los Angeles after his discharge, working as an electrician in a factory and serving as shop steward for the union.

He and his lifelong spouse, Linda Carson Camp, had several children, Kenny, Jeremy, Victorio, Mazhonaposhe, Ahmbaska, and Augustus.[3]

Camp joined the American Indian Movement when it was founded in 1968,[2] and organized the first AIM chapters in Kansas and Oklahoma.[3]

With AIM, he helped organize the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties protest, which led a caravan across the country to Washington. During the caravan, Camp and Hank Adams, then president of the National Coalition of Churches, wrote the Twenty Points document.[3] The caravan culminated in AIM's occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building,[2] and the presentation of the Twenty Points document to the BIA.

Hank Adams, president of The National Council of Churches, co-authored the groundbreaking “Twenty Points” summation document to present to government officials in Washington.

In 1973, he helped organize the Wounded Knee standoff, leading the first group of AIM members as they seized the trading post, cut phone lines, forced Bureau of Indian Affairs staff to leave town, and took eleven hostages.[2] Camp was one of the primary organizers of the standoff, along with Dennis Banks and Russell Means, and acted as the action's spokesperson.[2] Camp ultimately signed the agreement ending the occupancy, although not all his fellow activists did.[2] For his actions, he was convicted of "abducting, confining, and beating four postal inspectors", and he served two[1] to three years in prison.[2] Camp's sister, Casey Camp-Horinkek, disputes the alleged assault.[1]

Camp was elected chair of AIM in 1973, but was expelled shortly afterward after a controversial conflict with fellow AIM leader Clyde Bellecourt.[2][6][7]

After his time in AIM, Camp continued his activism. For over twenty years Camp was an organizer and active participant in the annual sun dance held in the Rosebud Indian Reservation,[5] along with Leonard Crow Dog, who had also been involved with the Wounded Knee occupiers.[2] He also organized and protested against a Lewis and Clark expedition re-enactment,[8] and against a motorcycle bar near his Oklahoma reservation.

Camp was also involved in a variety of environmental actions, organizing against the Keystone Pipeline[1] and against waste dumps sited on Native American lands.[2]

Camp died in Oklahoma after a yearlong battle against cancer.[5]

In 2009, Camp appeared in the PBS production, American Experience: We Shall Remain – Wounded Knee.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "Carter Camp, Indian Activist, Dies at 72". ABC News. January 3, 2014. Retrieved Jan 4, 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 Douglas Martin, "Carter Camp, American Indian Leader, Dies at 72" (obituary), New York Times, Jan. 8, 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "Carter Augustus Camp (obituary)", Ponca City News, Dec. 30, 2013.
  4. ↑ Several siblings survived his death, Craig Camp, Dwain Camp, and Casey Horinek-Camp. One sister previously died, Darlena Overland. See New York Times and Ponca City News obituaries.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Carter Camp, Ponca Native American Activist, Dies at 72". Ponca City News. 2013-12-29. Retrieved Jan 4, 2014.
  6. ↑ Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983)
  7. ↑ "Carter Camp" entry, Bruce E. Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement (2013)
  8. ↑ See Lewis and Clark Re-Enactment Protests, 2004, Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition.

Further research

External links