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Summary
Summary
The American Indian Movement, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, burst into that turbulent time with passion, anger, and radical acts of resistance. Spurred by the Civil Rights movement, Native people began to protest the decades--centuries--of corruption, racism, and abuse they had endured. They argued for political, social, and cultural change, and they got attention.
The photographs of activist Dick Bancroft, a key documentarian of AIM, provide a stunningly intimate view of this major piece of American history from 1970 to 1981. Veteran journalist Laura Waterman Wittstock, who participated in events in Washington, DC, has interviewed a host of surviving participants to tell the stories behind the images.
The words of Russell Means, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Eddie Benton Banai, Pat Bellanger, Elaine Salinas, Winona LaDuke, Bill Means, Ken Tilsen, Larry Leventhal, Jose Barreiro, and others tell the stories: the takeovers of federal buildings and the Winter Dam in Wisconsin, the founding of survival schools in the Twin Cities, the Wounded Knee trials, international conferences for indigenous rights, the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan and the Longest Walk for Survival, powwows and camps and United Nations actions. This is the inside record of a movement that began to change a nation.
Dick Bancroft has been the unofficial photographer for the American Indian Movement since 1970. He has traveled the world to take these photographs. Laura Waterman Wittstock (Seneca Nation), a writer and media consultant, covered the early years of the American Indian Movement as a journalist. Rigoberta Menchú Tum, recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, is an activist for indigenous rights in Guatemala.
Reviews (2)
Choice Review
This book features the photographs of Dick Bancroft, an advocate for the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s and early 1980s who used his camera to document Native American activism. The photos are organized chronologically, and the short essays that accompany them, written by Seneca educator and activist Laura Waterman Wittstock, utilize long passages from her oral interviews with Native American activists and their supporters. The book attributes the problems of poverty, environmental degradation, poor education, and lack of tribal sovereignty to US government policies. It features selected Native American actions to protest police violence, build Native schools, resist mining of Native lands, and build a transnational movement against discrimination of indigenous populations in the Americas. Bancroft's photos illustrate the book's essays, not the other way around. Many show individuals of different ages posing for their pictures. In contrast, the most energetic of the photos document the Longest Walk--the cross-country walk to Washington, DC, from January to July 1978 to oppose anti-Indian bills before Congress. The photos tell a story of collective exuberance, resolve, and exhaustion as Native Americans worked to preserve their rights. The book is at its best when the photos shape the story. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. M. Greenwald University of Pittsburgh
Library Journal Review
In an essay in the book's first pages, photographer Bancroft discusses his long involvement with the American Indian Movement (AIM), saying, "I was demonstrating that this minority wasn't invisible-it's here, it's this person and that person." This is precisely what he does with his keenly sighted photographs, which are complemented by radio journalist Wittstock's text describing the movement's actions. In addition to supplying narrative text, the author (Diverse Populations/Diverse Needs) curates passages from individuals involved in AIM efforts so that the whole product is something of a pictorial oral history. Many participants tell different sides of the same events, giving readers a broader, more inclusive view of AIM's history. Wittstock and Bancroft walk readers through it, from AIM's founding in 1968, to takeovers of government buildings in the early 1970s, to the founding of survival schools in the Twin Cities, to Wounded Knee, the Longest Walk, and the Yellow Thunder Camp, and the ongoing legacy of AIM's work. VERDICT A valuable addition to the canon of contemporary American history-one that fills the silence in conventional textbooks regarding American Indians' struggle to maintain culture and identity.-Rachael Dreyer, American Heritage Ctr., Laramie, WY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.