Clyde Bellecourt, longtime leader in the fight for Native civil rights, dies at 85（在线收听）

Clyde Bellecourt, longtime leader in the fight for Native civil rights, dies at 85

Transcript

Clyde Bellecourt co-founded the American Indian Movement and was an advocate for tribal sovereignty and cultural revival. He spent his life advocating for legislation to protect Indigenous people.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

A longtime leader in the fight for Native civil rights died this week. His name was Clyde Bellecourt, and he co-founded the American Indian Movement, or AIM, in Minneapolis back in 1968. He spent his life advocating for legislation to protect Indigenous people.

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

In 1978, Bellecourt famously organized a 3,000-mile walk from California to Washington, D.C. to lobby for the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CLYDE BELLECOURT: We come here to D.C., turning back the anti-Indian legislation, the John Wayne frontier mentality that exists among the media today in their reporting.

(APPLAUSE)

C BELLECOURT: We are asking you to help us to stop these genocidal practices that are taking place against my people.

MARTINEZ: Bellecourt protested the U.S. government's failures to honor its treaties, and he fought to reclaim stolen land.

MARTIN: In an interview with NPR in 1999, he recounted his early days of activism, when AIM took over the town of Wounded Knee, S.D., for 71 days.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

C BELLECOURT: We had a lot of occupations, a lot of takeovers, a lot of demonstrations, and all those were needed. I mean, we're a small minority, you know? We had to make some noise. And we knew that unless we made that, nobody would listen to us.

MARTIN: AIM's influence spread throughout North America, promoting tribal sovereignty and a cultural revival. Bellecourt helped open two schools for Indigenous youth.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

C BELLECOURT: Our children are taught Chippewa, Sioux and Winnebago, and English is taught as a foreign language in our school. We teach our children a value system based on the respect for the Earth as our mother, which is something they don't teach in colleges and universities.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

LITTLE CROW BELLECOURT: As I was a young boy, I used to have to wonder why my dad wasn't around a lot.

MARTINEZ: That's the voice of Little Crow Bellecourt, Clyde Bellecourt's eldest son.

MARTIN: He talked to NPR's Doualy Xaykaothao this week.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

L C BELLECOURT: As I got older, I learned to realize that everything he did was for our family and our Native peoples across the whole U.S.

MARTINEZ: Little Crow says his father always introduced himself with his Anishinaabe name, Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun, which means, The Thunder Before the Storm. He was 85.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SIGHT TO THE BLIND")