AIM - Then & Now

The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with an agenda that focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty. The founders included Dennis Banks, George Mitchell, Herb Powless, Clyde Bellecourt, Harold Goodsky, Eddie Benton-Banai, and a number of others in the Minneapolis Native American community. Russell Means, born Oglala Lakota, was an early leader in 1970s protests.

In the decades since AIM's founding, the group has led protests advocating indigenous American interests, inspired cultural renewal, monitored police activities, and coordinated employment programs in cities and in rural reservation communities across the United States. AIM has often supported indigenous interests outside the United States as well. By 1993 AIM had split into two main factions, with the AIM-Grand Governing Council based in Minneapolis and affirming its right to use the name and trademarks for affiliated chapters.

Guest David Hill (Choctaw) will discuss how AIM came to be, what its goals were, some of the main accomplishments.