January 26, 2005
TOPIC: Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement
GUESTS: Dennis Banks, author of “Ojibwe Warrior” and one of the founders of the American Indian Movement.
Last year we spoke with renowned American Indian activist Dennis Banks, whose book about his life and activism was just released. It’s called “Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement.” Dennis is currently in the Los Angeles area and we brought him back for a continuation of our interview.
Dennis Banks was born in 1937 and raised by his grandparents on a reservation in Minnesota. He grew up learning traditional Ojibwa ways. Like so many Indian children, he was separated from his home and family as a young child and forced to attend a government boarding school designed to assimilate Indian children into white American culture. After years of being indoctrinated in these repressive schools, Banks enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, shipping out to Japan when he was only seventeen years old.
After returning to the US, Banks lived in poverty in the Indian slums of Minnesota until he was arrested for stealing groceries to feed his growing family. Although his white accomplice was freed on probation, Banks was sent to prison. Hearing about the African American struggle for civil rights, he recognized that American Indians must take up a similar fight and upon his release, he became a founder of AIM, the American Indian Movement. AIM inspired Indians from many tribes to join the fight for American Indian rights. Through AIM, Banks sought to confront racism with activism rooted deeply in Native religion and culture.
The book Ojibwa Warrior relates Dennis Banks' inspiring life story and the story of the rise of AIM - from the 1972 "Trail of Broken Treaties" march to Washington, D.C., which ended in the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building -- to the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee. Banks tells the inside story of the seventy-one-day siege at Wounded Knee, his nighttime escape and interstate flight, and his eventual shootout with authorities at an FBI roadblock in Oregon.
But the book also tells a personal story – his evolution as an activist, his relationships, and spiritual transformation. We focus today’s interview on another side of Dennis Banks.
In the interview we did, Dennis gave us the name and address of an ally of his who is in need of clothing and donations: Lovey Two Bulls, P.O. Box 131, HCR 89, Hermosa, South Dakota, 57744. The phone number is 605-255-4108.
Dennis will be appearing at the following events:
Wednesday, January 26th, 2:30 pm
KPFK - American Indian Airwaves
3729 Cahuenga Blvd. West
North Hollywood, CA 91604
Main phone: (818) 985-2711
Wednesday, January 26th, 7pm
33 1/3 Books and Gallery
1200 N. Alvarado Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90026
Phone: 213.483.3500
Thursday, January 27th, 7pm
Mother Bears’ Books & Gallery
619 S. Mesa St.
San Pedro, CA 90731
motherbears@sbcglobal.net
Sunday, January 30th, (call for time)
Barnes & Noble, Glendale,
245 N. Glendale Avenue
Glendale, CA 91206
818.246.4677 (Store)
crm2913@bn.com
Monday, January 31st, 7pm
Bodhi Tree Bookstore,
8585 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA 90069-5199
bus#: 1(310)-659-1733 ext. 113
fax#: 1(310)-659-0178
e-mail: bodhitree@bodhitree.com
website: www.bodhitree.com
TOPIC: Commentary on MLK
GUESTS: Mumia Abu Jamal
Next, we go to a commentary by political prisoner and award winning journalist, Mumia Abu Jamal. We just heard from Dennis Banks and his experiences with the FBI and surveillance of the American Indian Movement. Abu Jamal cites the FBI persecution of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in this commentary. To find out more about Mumia Abu Jamal’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.com.
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