Dennis Banks, American Indian Movement Co-Founder, Dies

By Joe Stern

Revolutionaries around the world mourned the death of Dennis Banks, legendary Anishinaabe Leader and co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Like many indigenous people of his generation, Banks was forced into boarding school at four years old. There he suffered beatings and other abuses in the US genocidal experiment to “kill an Indian, save the man”. These abuses included cutting the boys’ hair, refusing to let students speak their tribal languages or practice their tribal religions, and extreme physical deprivation.

In 1968, Banks co-founded AIM with Clyde Bettecourt to fight Native oppression and endemic poverty. A year later, he took part in the occupation of Alcatraz Island in California. In 1972, he helped lead AIM’s “Trail of Broken Treaties”, a caravan of numerous tribes protesting treaty violations and reservation conditions which came from across the US to Washington DC, and occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. In early 1973, 200 armed Lakota and members of other indigenous nations occupied Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation for 71 violence filled days.

In later years, Banks became a substance and alcohol abuse counselor. However, he remained active in the fight for socialism and women’s liberation running for Vice President on the Peace and Freedom Party. He was also active in last year’s struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The indigenous peoples and all revolutionaries will long hold the memory of revolutionary activist Dennis Banks.

Workers Voice Socialist Movement

We are workers, employed and unemployed, youth, students, and seniors. We are multi-racial and multi-national and organize for the unity of the working class. We are funded by and for workers, for the liberation of all workers and oppressed people.

We organize for jobs and higher wages, against racism, women’s, and LGBTQ oppression, and for solidarity with immigrants. We organize for community schools, lower rents, and food on our tables. We organize for workers’ power so that everything will one day be removed from the capitalists’ private ownership.

We oppose the Pentagon, which is looting our tax dollars and handing them over to war-profiteering private companies, while social programs are gutted. We oppose war for empire which is pursued only to lower our wages and plunder the world’s resources while destroying the environment. We reject the monopoly media who feed us lie after lie.

The labor of workers produces enormous wealth here in Louisiana, the U.S. and the world– so much wealth that everyone could have housing, meaningful jobs, education, healthcare, and genuine equality. But this wealth is stolen and privately owned by the capitalist class for their greed and profit. We believe that we, the workers of the world, can unite in revolution to overcome capitalism and build a better world.

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