Wounded Knee 1973: Still Bleeding

by Stew Magnuson

On the night of Feb. 27, 1973, beat-up cars carrying dozens of angry young men sped into Wounded Knee village in Southwestern South Dakota, where 83 years earlier, Chief Big Foot and 150 Lakota Sioux were massacred by the U.S. 7th Calvary. Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the local Native American Lakota had come to occupy the symbolic site on the Pine Ridge Reservation to protest their grievances. Shortly thereafter, police and Federal agents cordoned off the small town which would soon became the stage of a violent standoff. The AIM and local Lakota would hold out against the firepower of the U.S. Government for 71 days. By the time the occupiers left, the village had been destroyed, two were dead, an activist had gone missing, and a U.S. Marshal left paralyzed. In Wounded Knee 1973: Still Bleeding, award-winning Washington D.C.-based journalist Stew Magnuson explores the events and personalities of this still unresolved struggle between Native Americans and the Federal Government.

Genres: Nonfiction

168 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 15, 2013

About the author

Stew Magnuson is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns, a nonfiction history spanning 130 years in the lives of two communities -- the white settler towns in Sheridan County, Nebraska, and the Oglala Lakotas of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
A native of Omaha and a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Magnuson is a Washington, D.C based journalist and former foreign correspondent who has filed stories from Mali, Japan, Cambodia, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Indonesia. He has traveled or lived in forty-six countries, including the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, where he served in the Peace Corps, and Peshawar, Pakistan, where he worked with Afghan refugees in the late 1980s. He is the author of The Song of Sarin, a fictional account of the subway nerve gas attack in Tokyo. He lives in Arlington, Virginia."

He is an associate member of the Western Writers of America.
And a member of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Reviews

[Robert Marsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. The author delivers a You Are There experience - bringing the people and events to life. Plus he shines a light on a decades-old, murky historical event and exposes the still gaping and unhealed wounds it left behind. I only wish it was longer - and came with a character flow chart. The cast of characters is colorful and large. Highly recommended.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

An easy-to-follow reporting of the earlier tragic events and the emotions and opinions which prevailed 40 years later. The author achieved an informative, unbiased, and balanced account to a reader entirely unfamiliar with these significant events. I agreed with another's review who suggested a character's flow chart. For those unfamiliar with the story, it helps to keep track of your own "Who's Who" diagram.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great overview of the occupation.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Augustana College objective of reconciliation was highly failed, they should be ashamed of putting so many strong, pained voices with facts and opinions, both Lakota and white, in one small room to "heal". This book was not what I expected, all stemmed from Augustana College and their ingenuous idea that a rainbow can be created only by the sun.