In memory
Vernon Bellecourt, WaBun-Inini, a member of the Anishinabe/Ojibwe Nation and longtime leader in the American Indian Movement, died on Oct. 13 of pneumonia at the age of 75.
Bellecourt, one of 12 children and older brother of AIM co-founder Clyde Bellecourt, was born on the White Earth Chippewa Reservation in Minnesota in 1931. It is estimated that unemployment on the reservation was 95 percent when the Bellecourt children were growing up.
Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt co-founded the American Indian Movement in 1968 in Minneapolis, an organization of and for Native people that was inspired by the Black Panther Party. AIM sought to defend the community against police brutality, racism, poverty and oppression.
Vernon soon joined and was a lifelong activist in the organization. By its militant example and defense of Native peoples trying to stop the theft of their land and resources, AIM helped instill a renewed pride across the Native nations of the United States.
AIM led a 71-day takeover of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation beginning Feb. 27, 1973, after U.S. marshals laid siege to a community meeting that sought AIM’s assistance against the repressive and corrupt tribal government. More than 300 federal agents surrounded the camp with armored personnel carriers, over 130,000 rounds of ammunition, and constant gunfire. Two AIM activists were murdered by government agents.
For this, the American Indian Movement leaders, including the Bellecourts and Banks, were severely repressed. Over 60 people on the reservation were murdered by police and vigilantes in the next two years, culminating in the June 26, 1975, shoot-out at Pine Ridge, where two FBI agents were killed after raiding the reservation.
The most egregious injustice against AIM activists was the frame-up and persecution of Leonard Peltier. Because two AIM members, Dino Butler and Bob Robideau, were acquitted of the FBI deaths by a federal jury in Iowa by reason of self-defense, the FBI decided the only remaining defendant charged but not yet tried had to pay. Leonard Peltier had sought refuge in Canada and was therefore not tried along with Butler and Robideau, or he also would have been acquitted.
The FBI falsified evidence to get Peltier extradited. Despite a lack of evidence, witness coercion by the FBI, and numerous irregularities, Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. To this day, he remains in a U.S. federal prison at Lewisburg, Penn., despite international and national demands for his freedom.
It is in this context of extreme U.S. government repression of the American Indian Movement that the continued resistance of leaders like the Bellecourts, Banks, Bill Means and many other Indigenous leaders is best appreciated.
An internationalist
Bellecourt was an internationalist, supporting the Palestinian, Irish, Venezuelan, Cuban, Libyan, Nicaraguan and many other causes.
When the CIA intensified its counterrevolutionary war in Nicaragua in the mid-1980s by recruiting Indigenous Miskito leaders who had joined the Contra forces, Bellecourt traveled to the country to defend the Nicaraguan revolution.
He prided himself on his uncompromising anti-imperialist stance, and recently returned from Venezuela where he traveled to express appreciation to Hugo Chávez for the Bolivarian revolution’s heating-fuel deliveries to Native communities in Minnesota.
In recent years, Bellecourt was nationally known as a spokesperson in the campaign against racist anti-Indian symbols of sports teams through the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media.
In 1997, he drew national attention to this anti-racist fight when he, Juan Reyna and Juanita Helphrey and other coalition members set fire to an effigy of the extremely offensive Cleveland baseball team’s Chief Wahoo, during the baseball World Series at Cleveland’s Jacobs Field. He was arrested but charges were later dropped.
In a 1995 interview with Sinn Fein, Bellecourt stated, “AIM sees the Washington Redskins, the Atlanta Braves basketball team, Kansas City Chiefs and Cleveland Indians baseball teams with their grinning buck-toothed mascot Chief Wahoo as demeaning the beautiful culture of the Indigenous nations of the Americas. We are a living people with a vibrant culture and we refuse to have our identity trivialized and degraded. Indians are people, not mascots for America’s fun and games.”
Bellecourt was a strong opponent of the U.S. genocide and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he spoke at several ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) anti-war rallies since 2003 in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation extends its deepest condolences to his family, comrades and friends. We pledge our continued solidarity with the Native struggle for self-determination and justice.
Vernon Bellecourt, presente!
The Bellecourt family is collecting donations to help pay for medical and burial costs. Donations and cards can be sent to:
Clyde Bellecourt
3953 14th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55407
