American Indian Movement Research Paper

Words: 739
Pages: 3

AIM, also known as the American Indian Movement, was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota during the year 1968. The founders of this movement, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Vernon Bellecourt, and George Mitchell, had led an exponential growth in the 1970s, as powerful AIM members fought against police brutality, racial profiling, and overall harsh discrimination. The American Indian Movement swiftly grabbed the attention of Americans as these Natives promoted its activism and advocacy. As these brave heroes persevered through various opinions across the country, especially hate, Natives continued to carve a path for America and its future. In this essay, we will discuss what AIM was, and how this process affected the United States and our people. …show more content…
AIM also supported the creation of the Indian Health Board of Minneapolis to provide healthcare to the Native community. Its leaders took inspiration from the civil rights movement and the policies of nonviolent confrontation that many of its leaders espoused, although as the years went on AIM members would occasionally take up arms.” (History.com editors) For hundreds of years, Natives have been treated poorly. The white people began this discrimination by sailing to America where Indians had been settled and taking over the native land. AIM was created in the 1960s to aid those Indians who had been displaced from their own homes by the American Federal government. This movement sought to fight for the basic rights of these people, autonomy over tribal areas, recognition of their cultural beliefs and values, and the power to take back land they felt had been illegally seized by the United States. Although leaders and members of AIM had been thrown in prison, the people fighting for the cause were not willing to back down. Its leaders decided to take a nonviolent approach to these …show more content…
The United States has been through many years of trials and tribulations of racism, and the Indians of our land are just a part of this large effect. The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN in 2007. This document puts into effect that there are now effective rights for Indigenous people in America. This includes cultural and ceremonial expression, their identities being preserved, language, education, health, and employment rights. This declaration was a huge stepping stone for the Indian community which AIM had fought for. The United States as a whole has a huge issue with discrimination if you are not a person with white skin. It took years of advocacy, but those people finally came around to realize that these Indigenous people are just as much of a human as they are. AIM is a powerful movement that will never be forgotten by the American people. It is a representation of how to stand up for yourself and your people, even during the toughest of times. This group has forever dramatically changed the federal policies in place towards Native Americans to this