AIM Collection is live!

SiRO is excited to present the collection on the American Indian Movement that includes audio interviews and hearings, documents, photographs and ephemera from the 1970s-2000s.

The American Indian Movement began in 1968 in Minnesota and sought self-determination by Native Americans and reclamation of their lands. AIM leaders included Native American community activists led by George Mitchell, Dennis Banks, and Clyde Bellecourt who raised issues of racism, illness, poverty, unemployment and annexation of territories by white Americans. In the famous Wounded Knee event, AIM members occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota to protest against the corrupt government. FBI was deployed to remove the occupants and the siege lasted for 71 days. Two people were killed, twelve wounded, and twelve hundred arrested*.

The collection includes evidence of demonstrations, marches, protests, conventions, meetings relating to the American Indian Movement, as well as arrests and court hearings of Wounded Knee protesters.

The collection also contains evidences of support by Civil Rights Movement leaders and Chicano movement leaders and parallels that have been drawn between these movements.

“The American Indian Movement is fighting for its unborn generation, not just the Wounded Knee…we need change” says Crow Dog in the radio broadcast ‘The Road to Wounded Knee‘. The collection features audio interviews of prominent AIM members, given at different times during the movement.

*https://libguides.mnhs.org/aim

More resources: Minnesota History Center, American Indian Movement