Wounded Knee 1973: Still Bleeding: The American Indian Movement, the FBI, and their Fight to Bury the Sins of the Past

by Stew Magnuson

On the night of Feb. 27, 1973, beat-up cars carrying dozens of angry young men sped into Wounded Knee village. Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and local Lakotas had come to occupy the symbolic site on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where the army had massacred Chief Big Foot and his people in 1890. They 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, one activist went missing, and a U.S. marshal was left paralyzed. Thirty-nine years later, key figures from the movement, Russell Means, Clyde Bellecourt and Dennis Banks arrived at the Dakota Conference at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D., where the events and the meaning of the Wounded Knee Occupation would be discussed. There to greet them were former FBI Special Agent in Charge Joseph Trimbach and his son John, ardent, life-long critics of AIM. Never before had so many key occupation figures from the movement and the government been under the same roof at the same time. Accusations of murders and cover-ups began to fly from both sides, and organizers had to beef up security. This would be no ordinary academic conference. The vitriolic speeches and angry reactions from both the pro- and anti-AIM participants exposed the still festering wounds that have wracked Pine Ridge Reservation as a result of the occupation for four decades. Wounded Knee 1973: Still Bleeding gives readers an account of the major issues presented at the conference, along with a summary of the occupation itself, the Banks and Means leadership trial in St. Paul, Minn., and the bloody years on Pine Ridge that followed. It also addresses the enduring unsolved mystery of civil rights activist Ray Robinson, who entered the occupied village, and was never seen alive again.

Genres: Nonfiction

168 pages, Paperback

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.