Dennis Banks

The government took him from his family at Leech Lake when he was five. Federal officials sent Ojibwe children to Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools hundreds of miles from home, where staff cut their hair, put them in uniforms and punished them for speaking Ojibwe. Banks ran, repeatedly, walking back north toward the reservation, and each time the school took him back. Most of his childhood passed inside that system, including years at Pipestone in southwestern Minnesota. At 17 he enlisted in the Air Force, drew a posting to Japan, married a woman named Machiko, went AWOL and left the service with a dishonorable discharge. A 1966 burglary conviction then sent him to Stillwater prison, where he met Clyde Bellecourt.

AIM began in Minneapolis on July 28, 1968, founded by Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, George Mitchell and others to answer the arrest rate in the city's Indian neighborhoods. Its first work was a street patrol that listened to police scanners and followed officers to their calls. Then came the national actions: Alcatraz in 1969, the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan and the seizure of the BIA headquarters in 1972, and 71 days under federal siege at Wounded Knee in 1973. Russell Means was the movement's voice. Banks was its organizer, and the organizing is what put him in court.

The Wounded Knee trial collapsed. On September 16, 1974, Judge Fred Nichol dismissed the conspiracy and assault charges against Banks and Means for prosecutorial misconduct, finding that FBI agents had lied under oath. A South Dakota jury convicted him anyway over the earlier Custer County courthouse riot, and he jumped bail. What came next is disputed. Two FBI agents died in a June 1975 shootout at Pine Ridge, and Leonard Peltier was convicted of their killings in 1977 in a case his supporters have contested ever since. Anna Mae Aquash, close to Banks and suspected within AIM of informing, was shot in the head that winter. Two AIM members were convicted of her murder decades later. John Trudell testified at two trials that Banks knew her body had been found before it was identified. Banks wrote that Trudell told him.

Jerry Brown refused to extradite him, and Banks spent eight years in California, teaching at D-Q University, where he became its first Native chancellor. He took sanctuary with the Onondaga Nation when Brown left office, surrendered in 1984, and served 18 months. He came out and counseled addicts at Pine Ridge. AIM then broke into rival factions, Banks with the Bellecourts and Means against them, and the two men who had held Wounded Knee together argued in public for the rest of their lives. Banks died in Rochester, Minnesota, on October 29, 2017. Four years later the Interior Department opened the first federal accounting of the boarding schools he was sent to at five, and counted 408 of them.

Dennis Banks's life against the full span of the corpus.

• American Indian Movement other
  Co-founded in Minneapolis with Clyde Bellecourt, George Mitchell and others 1968
• Trail of Broken Treaties and the BIA occupation other
  A cross-country caravan that ended in six days inside the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters 1972
• Wounded Knee occupation other
  Seventy-one days under federal siege on the Pine Ridge Reservation 1973
• The Longest Walk other
  Alcatraz to Washington on foot against bills to abrogate Indian treaties 1978
• Sacred Run other
  The annual spiritual run he founded in California, later international 1978
• Ojibwa Warrior book
  Memoir written with Richard Erdoes 2004

• April 12, 1937 aged 0 Born at Federal Dam on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation Ojibwe, of the Leech Lake Band.
• 1942 aged ~5 Taken from his family at five to a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school He ran away repeatedly and the school brought him back. He later attended Pipestone Indian Boarding School.
• 1954 aged ~17 Enlists in the Air Force at 17 and is posted to Japan He went AWOL and was discharged dishonorably.
• July 28, 1968 aged 31 Co-founds the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis Its first project was a street patrol monitoring police calls in Indian neighborhoods.
• November 3, 1972 aged 35 Helps lead the takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters The end point of the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan, days before the presidential election.
• February 27, 1973 aged 35 Wounded Knee occupation begins and holds for 71 days Two activists were killed by gunfire and a US marshal was shot and paralyzed.
• September 16, 1974 aged 37 Judge Fred Nichol dismisses the Wounded Knee charges for prosecutorial misconduct The court found that FBI agents had lied under oath and that the prosecution had deceived it.
• 1984 aged ~47 Surrenders in South Dakota after nine years as a fugitive Sentenced over the 1973 Custer courthouse riot, he served 18 months.
• October 29, 2017 aged 80 Dies in Rochester, Minnesota Pneumonia following heart surgery. He was 80.

• Russell Means 1939–2012
  American Indian Movement leader whose occupations drove Native activism into national view. rival
• Vine Deloria Jr. 1933–2005
  Writer and legal scholar whose work transformed public understanding of Native sovereignty, treaty rights, and Indigenous religion. defended by
• Marlon Brando 1924–2004
  Actor whose method acting revolutionized film performance and influenced generations of actors. funded by
• Sitting Bull 1831–1890
  Hunkpapa Lakota leader and spiritual figure who resisted U.S. expansion and defended tribal sovereignty. succeeded the movement of