American Indian Movement

Name: William Reyes

Social Movement

 

The American Indian Movement

 

            The story begins with the first treaty between Sioux Indian Nation and the United States in 1868. In which the Indians were promised large territories where they could live and keep their tribes to themselves, but with the discovery of gold in the Black Mountain, the government began to introduce soldiers and civilians to destabilize the Sioux way of life? The soldiers send by the government began to exterminate Sioux Indians and buried them in mass graves resulting from the confrontations.  From the conflict between the two nations resulted in death for many Indians as well as Anglo American this force the government to adopt different tactics to subjugate the Native Nation. The U.S. government once again promises the Indians to relocate their tribes to metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco. However, once the Indians left their land. They found that there was no planning, or preparation for their relocation but instead what the natives receive was letter stating that the status for aids would be terminated.

            A period that began during the 1960s with the civil rights movement, the Indian American movement began to gather strength among the Lakota's Indian sought to organize to give hope to many natives who had lost hope because they lost their land, their culture, the language, many of the components that are part of their identity. The Indians began to form militant groups to protest in areas near their community with display faith "indigenous Ghost dances." To demonstrate that the native Indians culture lives and a new revival began.  

The young Indians living in metropolitan cities across the nation once they reach adulthood. They understood the injustice perpetrated by the government for their removal, and extermination of their Indian heritage; New generations of Indian's trap between the world of the pass and the future ahead.
 The New Generation of Indians organize mobilization began by spreading information, specifically for natives. The information contains in the Newspapers spoke the relevance, and reality that Indian native's subjugation under an oppressed system that continues to denies them the right to exist as Indians. The short the system was bias toward the natives as they could not receive justice from the Federal government nor from the local government.  The reward of the Occupation for the American movement brought the Indians together and could understand more about where they come from, same as the direction they needed to take for their movement. The Indian movement began to occupied government facilities to demonstrate their grievances for the injustice and harassment of police enforcement.  Furthermore, the movement occupation began to demonstrate their effective in mobilization of the media, with framing their massage of the injustice of Washington in keeping the promise. However, every time the native progress on one issue the government would undermine their effort by given them a negative view in the media. As a result, the Indian movement leaders and follower were labels as a dangerous fundamental group. One strict way to combat the radical Indians was by establishing formal Indian representation that targeted the natives and minimize economic opportunity. Political resource mobilization use the political movement to weaken the power structure to create more opportunity for their cause. The government created a negative stereotype for the natives, under the formal oppression, the natives found more strength to expose the injustice in which they live. The Indians mobilized resources in support for justice at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. The movement was effective in establishing a Civil Right commission which demanded the removal of the leader undermining the justice among the natives.  The takeover the reservation by the movement brought the attention to the nation on issues of corruption within the reservations in the Dakota area. The Indian had been actively engaged in removing many of the stereotypes, their demands of more access to include native education culture for new generation who would be growing without any ideas about who their people are.