[2 articles]
American Indian Movement founder urges native youth to speak out
http://www.canada.com/news/American+Indian+Movement+founder+urges+native+youth+speak/2996087/story.html
By Melissa Martin
May 7, 2010
WINNIPEG Clyde Bellecourt, co-founder of the American Indian
Movement, told aboriginal youth in Winnipeg on Thursday that the same
activist spirit he spearheaded in the 1960s is needed to counter the
problems facing their people today.
Under the soaring rafters of Thunderbird House just north of downtown
Winnipeg, the five bright-eyed initiates to the Okiijida Warrior
Society listened attentively, ready to take a place in the group,
which was founded in 1997 as a politically active alternative to street gangs.
What Bellecourt told those initiates to do was what he and others
like him did back in 1968, when they started the movement that would
turn them into some of the most polarizing figures of a turbulent
decade: Stand your ground and speak out loud.
"We're trying to tell the truth," Bellecourt said, of the message he
bears to today's aboriginal youth. "Only the truth will set America
and Canada free."
Bellecourt is 74 now, but even with his grey ponytail and watery
eyes, he looks a little younger. He was 32 when he and other
aboriginal activists co-founded the American Indian Movement; he was
36 when AIM seized the hamlet of Wounded Knee, S.D., and clashed with
the U.S. military during the infamous 71-day siege in 1973.
Five years later, he marched with AIM across the United States, with
boxer Muhammad Ali and the late senator Ted Kennedy walking along
beside, to protest U.S. government attempts to unravel treaty rights.
He's speaking in Winnipeg, he said, because he hopes the five young
men and women who were turned into Okiijida Warriors on Thursday and
the others that will be initiated Friday and on the weekend will
carry the flame forward.
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Native activist passes the torch
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/native-activist-passes-the-torch-93053704.html
Young aboriginals urged to speak out
By: Melissa Martin
7/05/2010
At the centre of a circle of eyes, Clyde Bellecourt stands, lifts the
eagle fan and clears his throat.
In front of him, under the soaring Thunderbird House rafters, are
five bright-eyed initiates to the Okiijida Warrior Society, ready to
take a place in the group, which was founded in 1997 as a politically
active alternative to street gangs.
What Bellecourt told those initiates to do was what he and others
like him did in 1968, when they started the movement that would turn
them into some of the most polarizing figures of a turbulent decade:
Stand your ground and speak out loud.
"We're trying to tell the truth," Bellecourt said of the message he
bears to today's aboriginal youth. "Only the truth will set America
and Canada free."
Bellecourt is 74 now, but even with his grey ponytail and watery
eyes, he looks a little younger. He was 34 when he and other
aboriginal activists co-founded the American Indian Movement. He was
36 when AIM seized the hamlet of Wounded Knee, S.D., and clashed with
the U.S. military during the infamous 71-day siege. Five years later,
he marched with AIM across the United States, with Muhammad Ali and
the late senator Ted Kennedy walking along, to protest U.S.
government attempts to unravel treaty rights.
Once, he was part of what the FBI considered one of the greatest
internal threats to America. But for all this life of conflict --
sometimes armed -- and political agitation, Bellecourt speaks
quietly, his voice slipping away at the centre of the great Main
Street space. "They still like to look at us as radicals and
terrorists," he said of the government, maybe even the mainstream.
"But all we want to do is help our people."
Waiting to speak to the Okiijida initiates at Thunderbird House on
Thursday, and with little prompting, the Minnesota-born activist
opined on missing and slain aboriginal women, on sports mascots
stereotyping aboriginal people (an issue AIM has long fought, and
sometimes won, in court) and on old First Nations prophecies that he
said predict the turbulent modern era ending in oil slicks and sludgy rivers.
He said he's speaking in Winnipeg because he hopes the five young men
and women who were turned into Okiijida Warriors on Thursday and the
others that will be initiated today and on the weekend will carry the
flame forward.
Because silence, he suggested, can kill: The last time he was in
Winnipeg many years ago, there was a demonstration to bring attention
to missing and slain aboriginal women.
Back then, Bellecourt said, nobody reported on it. "People say,
'That's just Indians; who the hell cares?' " Bellecourt said.
"Ignorance creates racism. If the media won't get out and write this
story, then we have to do it ourselves.
"I'm trying to get young people involved in our culture, to start
helping our family be strong and taking care of one another. Get off
alcohol, get away from drugs...
"It's important for us to sit them down and, as elders, talk about
what they are supposed to do."
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