Tune in to 99.5 FM or wbai.org on Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 8 PM EST for Wounded Knee Uprising, 50 Years Later, a special edition of Out-FM. Out-FM producer Bob Lederer and intern and gay Choctaw activist Elijah Weaver will interview American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Lenny Foster and white bisexual anti-imperialist and physician Barbara Zeller, both of whom were at the site of the occupation in South Dakota in 1973.

February 27, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the 71-day Wounded Knee uprising by more than 200 Lakota activists led by the American Indian Movement or AIM, who set up camp in the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Reservation, site of a U.S. Army massacre of 300 Lakota in 1890.

The Lakota people – incorrectly labeled by the U.S. government as “Sioux” – were demanding that the federal government suspend the colonial tribal government and hold a referendum on a new form of democratic government. They also demanded compliance with 19th century treaties granting them land and water rights—then under attack as lucrative uranium had been discovered in the area. The Lakota camp quickly came under a massive military siege from the U.S. Army, federal marshals, and the FBI.

On May 8, 1973, after 71 days of occupation, federal officials agreed to investigate the AIM leaders’ charges about violations of Native treaty rights and 150 civil rights violations by the Guardians of the Oglala Nation, or GOONs, the AIM and Oglala leaders ended the occupation. Two national AIM leaders were arrested and charged with murder, but charges were later dismissed due to government misconduct. A total of 1500 other supporters nationwide were arrested on lesser charges. Over time, all the promises of investigations and actions to reverse violation of Indigenous rights came to nothing. In the 3 years that followed, GOON squads, with FBI support, murdered 69 AIM supporters and wounded 300.

Guests:
Lenny Foster is a longtime distinguished Indigenous and prisoner rights activist. A member of the Dineh nation, commonly called Navajo, he has been with the American Indian Movement or AIM since 1970, is a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council, and participated in many actions for Indigenous sovereignty, including at Wounded Knee. And Lenny Foster was one of the frontline warriors at Wounded Knee who participated in 11 gun battles with the government. For years afterward, he was director of the Navajo Nation Corrections Project and was a spiritual adviser for over 2,000 Indigenous incarcerated people in 96 prisons, including AIM leader and longtime political prisoner Leonard Peltier, unjustly convicted of killing an FBI agent. He has testified before the United Nations and the U.S. Congress. He joins us from Saint Michael, Arizona.

Barbara Zeller is a longtime physician and acupuncturist who has focused on serving disenfranchised communities and is a white bisexual woman. Barbara has a long track record of anti-imperialist solidarity with liberation movements and medical care and testimony for U.S. political prisoners. In 1973, shortly after she and her husband Alan Berkman obtained their medical licenses, Barbara and Alan traveled to Wounded Knee and took great risks to provide medical aid to people of that blockaded town. She joins us from New York City.

Short Indigenous video about the Wounded Knee uprising

https://ictnews.org/news/women-of-wounded-knee-why-creator-gave-me-my-life

Two-minute video about the 50th anniversary of the uprising, produced by ICT, a nonprofit public news enterprise focused on Indigenous issues.