Public Affairs Program; Russell Means

What, let's go to that interview, tell us a little bit about, again, about the interview and Russell Means. Well, on October 10th, 52-year-old Russell Means and supporters of the American Indian Movement held a protest in Denver of a parade celebrating Christopher Columbus. Means pledged peaceful civil disobedience to stop the parade, celebrating a man he compares to Adolf Hitler. Denver newspapers warned that the protest could become violent as a Ku Klux Klan rally had on Hitler's birthday last year. And soon the parade sponsored the Italian-American Federation of Organizations in Colorado began receiving word that more than half of the parade's participants would stay away out of fear of violence. The intent of American Indian Movement supporters became distorted, and once again, Russell Means was labeled as a radical who would use violent means if necessary to achieve his goals. But what sort of man is Russell Means, really? Some would say that this Lakota-Oglala Lakota's leadership of the 71-day siege at Wounded

Knee South Dakota in 1973 proves that he is a violent man, but means would say that he was only defending his people against armed U.S. government repression. The U.S. government as well as most U.S. news media, he would say, refused to tell or acknowledge the truth. Having much of the Wounded Knee battle means was in the hospital recovering from being shot in the back by Bureau of Indian Affairs Police, newspapers reported that he'd been shot in the abdomen. Since Wounded Knee, however, Russell Means has focused his attention on himself. In recent years, he sought treatment for his anger and the difficulty he's had becoming an effective parent. In this interview conducted at the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council offices in Denver, Russell Means speaks candidly about his past and his plans for the future. He begins by describing how he became involved with the American Indian Movement in 1969 while he was an accountant for the Cleveland Economic Council. I flew up in the morning to Cleveland to Detroit, and there I saw the American Indian Movement.

By about a dozen people came, they were well-prepared, they had a plan of action, and a proposal on how to, it was a list of challenges to the churches it was called, challenges to the churches. Now I just watched and watched them in action. They had pamphlets explaining who they were and why, and it was something so I ended up staying the whole convention for a week, and I kept calling back almost daily to the

job saying I got to stay another day about a work here. So I take that time. I finally, when I flew back to Cleveland on the plane, I wrote my resignation up, and I've been able to ever since. You wrote your resignation and went to work full-time for Aimeon. Well, I was full-time for the Cleveland American Indian Center, but also on the side, I established the first chapter of the American Indian Movement, and then I helped fund the National American Indian Movement. Is there any protest that you've been involved with as an aim militant that you feel as though it was the most effective, they all are, can't pick one out. We always win, it's becoming redundant, because we're right, and when you're on the side

of right, nothing stops it. Freedom is not just endemic to the American Indian Movement, it's worldwide. You can't stop people yearning to be free, and you see it all over the world. Well, it's going to happen in this country as well as what happened in the Soviet Union. The people are yearning to be free, and this country has become one huge Indian reservation. All the policies that have been utilized against us, Indian people, have been perfected, practiced, and perfected on us, exported to the world, and now those same policies have been brought home to America, and the United States of America is one huge Indian reservation. They have perfected the one-party system of government.

A number of people have said that you are not well-respected among tribal councils, tribal, so-called tribal leaders. What do you think that is? Because I don't go to Washington, D.C. and Baker from the White Men. I'm not a beggar, and tribal councils are designed to be beggars, and to employ beggars. I think my God, I don't want to be put in the same category as them. I hope they do. Not only do you test me, I hope they do the test me to the point that they finally learn that that is the wrong way to go, but it will never happen. Colonialism works, colonialism works until the people are fed up, but those people who are the colonial puppet will always be around. And I, as an American Indian person, I refuse to walk backwards, stooped over.

I prefer to stand up on my hand, make an act like a human being, and demand the respect of that human being. So do you think the tribal council should stop taking any money from the federal government through the BIA, or what do you think they should do instead of, instead of begging? Well, the only thing left for Indian people is for us to struggle for freedom and complete independence from the United States of America. That's the only way that we will be, become a happy and responsible people, is to regain our freedom. And for some Indian nations, it's been centuries of enslavement, and now for my people it's been over a century of enslavement, and it is time for us to seek our freedom.

What would that mean in concrete terms? Would that mean the tribe declaring sovereignty and saying that no American citizens could come on to tribal land and that they kick all of the white-owned corporations off and stop letting them mine on their lands and so forth, is that an example of what it would mean? What it would mean is the same thing that it meant and means for Lithuania and for Latvia, the Baltic states, what it means for every nation, and every people's struggling to be free in this world, New Caledonia, East Timor, the Maori people of what is now called New Zealand, and the Indian people in the rest of the Western Hemisphere, they are the majority in Peru, in Ecuador, in Bolivia, in Panama, and yet we are the most oppressed.

It's unconscionable that the only color of the human race not allowed to participate at the table of the family of nations, is it are the red people of the Western Hemisphere? So it is our duty as human beings to become a free people once again. Why is there this division between traditionalist Indians and those who would seek change through the system? There are some who would argue that those are the people who are achieving change at least on a day-to-day level, and the greatest change in the lives of American Indians, or maybe I should say, oh my god, these so-called educated Indians, they make it in the white man's world by walking backwards, stooped over, begging for his money, and yet the statistics of our deprivation remain constant.

Since World War II, they remain constant. The suicide rate among, you know, we have eight-year-olds back home, and on other reservations that commit suicide, eight-year-olds for Christ's sakes. And then he's idiots at NARF. You know, NARF hasn't done anything since the Indians took over. NARF was an innovative, revolutionary organization, the Native American rights when it first started, and that's when white people were running it. Then the Indians took over and sold out, sold the farm, man, and, you know, it's embarrassing, you know, the sellouts have so, and they're called leaders. That's insulting, not only to me as a person, and a human being, but it's insulting to my heritage that these people are called, leaders, and Washington, D.C., these tribal chairman, they go into every cycle, man, it's every year they go into Washington, D.C., to testify before the appropriations committees, okay, to beg for money.

So they go in, and these tribal chairman, that these are supposed to be leaders of nations. Well, the appropriations committee, they hold their hearings, and they hold their hearings, and there's a small room there where not all the tribal chairman of the different reservations can squeeze into someone, so they're roaming around the walls. And finally, towards the end of the day, they're called in. And I don't know how they flip the coin or something, and what congressman gets stuck with the Indian, you know, but it's usually only one congressman left from the appropriations committee. Each chairman is given, like, three minutes to explain his nation, the needs of his nation. And if he goes over three minutes, he's gaveled into silence, and they say, next. How do you mean in, and dehumanizing, can that experience be to the average human being?

And these people call themselves educated, you know, they call themselves leaders, and they're treated, they're treated like dirt. The final lawyer said that he thought that the American Indian movement would have, would be more successful today, would have been more successful since we wanted me if it had taken the same course that the civil rights movement took. If the U.S. government's law would have been turned against itself, that Indians would be better off today, and that, you know, people like you have stirred things up, have made a lot of noise, they've gotten a lot of attention, but in terms of changing things on a day-to-day basis, they say you haven't really accomplished that much. Every place the American Indian movement has ever been, we've created institutions. And those institutions, we allowed them to do exactly what we claim we want, and that's

self-determined. You know, in order to be free, one of the rights you have as being a free person is the right to make mistakes and the right to be wrong, okay? So when we created these institutions, if they didn't, if they're not, they haven't survived to this day, then they failed, and we have the right to fail, just like all the bankrupt SNLs and the banks in America, and the, and the tenured professors who fail, you know? I, I see nothing wrong with that, but as far as I know of, that the, the institutions that were begun by the aim leadership, are those institutions are still, and effectively running in Indian country, the only independent, the only independent institutions running on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation were created by aim, the Cleveland American Indian

Center still running, the only urban Indian housing project in America is aim, in Minneapolis, and we, I can go on and on radio station, the only Indian operated in Indian owned and Indian controlled radio station in the United States is, is, is aim, that's clearly radio. I can go on and on and on. We founded the American Indian, here in Denver, the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council, which is going to become, you know, it's only, it's less than a year old. Ten years from now, it'll be an international organization, all right, or less. My point, you know, so my answer to, uh, Vine, Deloria, or any of these self-important critics of the American Indian movement, join us, put us in your direction, tell us your, your, your great visions, let us know so we can participate with those great visions of these

educated Indians or these tribal council peoples, let us know, and we'll create institutions for you. Do you think Ben Nighthorse Campbell has represented, uh, American Indian interests adequately, or at all? Well, he's been in the House of Representatives, what do you think of Ben Nighthorse Campbell? For those that believe in the brick wall, and that's what I call Washington, D.C. Here's what happens when you go to Washington, D.C. and it's why I call it the brick wall. You pound your head against that brick wall, two things happen, one of two things, either it wakes you up and you say, hey, that hurts and you leave, or else your brains turn to mush. Either way, nothing happens, and I, and I'm going to repeat myself here, our statistics of our deprivation remain constant, Ben Nighthorse Campbell is a, is a good family man, probably

a real decent human being, in fact, I like some of his speeches, I admire the man. I really do, I admire him, but in so far, as, as us re-acquiring land that is rightfully and legally ours, that hasn't happened. As far as us acquiring freedom of religion, that hasn't happened. So yes, I imagine he does some good for somebody with some mush brains, but I, you know, I don't know of it. Have you ever, have you ever met and spoken with him personally? Oh yes, I know Ben, one of three years, in fact he awarded me with a silver medal back in 1976, up on the Northern Shine Reservation, for being a defender of my people.

You think that people should vote for him for Senate, if you recall, if you recall a lot about it, would you vote for him? Well, if I participated in the electoral system of America, I would vote for Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and I would recommend that other people vote for it. It's, here's something curious. Yesterday, I was asked to speak at the rally that Jesse Jackson had on the Aurora campus of University of Colorado, Denver. The African people came up to me, who were sponsoring that, from the Rainbow Coalition, and asked if I would say a few good words about Ben Nighthorse Campbell. But I said, sure.

Well, they then went over to Ben Nighthorse Campbell's people, and there were two women over there, and the white women, and they vehemently, she was shaking their heads. And so the African found from the rainbow chorus came back, I'm sorry, I just forget that Ben's people don't want you to speak, just behalf. So, and I can see why, because the papers here, I've editorialized today, you know, condemning the American Union movement in myself and others, and I don't know leadership, I was being fascist, and you know, the Rocky Mountain News called as fascists, and I really had to laugh over that, you know, the Soviet Union's gone now. So there are no communists, you know, we were usually by in right-wing papers, always labeled as commies.

Well, they've got to find a name to call us, you know, it's really juvenile, so they're labeled on those fascists, the Rocky Mountain News, changing the subject again. Why have you chosen to become an actor? Because I'm an artist, and I love the art of acting. Were you pleased with the last of the Mohicans? You said you thought it was a revolutionary film, aren't you? The last of the Mohicans is very revolutionary, and so far as the bad Indian, for the first time in cinematic history, is a human being. He has a good reason for being bad, and he's also intellectually superior to his non-indying counterparts, the French and English generals, is also intellectually superior to the Mohawks for that matter. Also, it shows that frontiers people and Indian people on the frontier interacted socially and economically and militarily, but they visited one another, and in that movie you'll

see that even in your changed articles of clothing, or fashions of the day, were interchangeable. It was a very healthy picture of India. Now, you have this stereotypes of violence, which I understand that in order to continue to subjugate a people, you have to continually picture them as being violent. But the American Indian movement and the American Indian people are not violent. We do believe like any natural animal, natural living thing, we do believe in self-defense and survival. But it's curious about Indian people always being labeled as violent, and like this movie shows us as being violent, and that all the graves that the archaeologists have robbed

up and down this hemisphere, not one grave, not anything they've robbed and pillaged has ever produced a weapon of war. That goes for the Aztecs, that goes for the Mayans, the Toan-Tex, the Incas, the Lakota, the Navajo, the Mohawk, on and on, et al. They've never produced a weapon of war. So how can people make war without implements of war? Is the director in L.A. or Hollywood that wanted to talk to you about another movie? Can you say what that is or is it too early to say anything about that? You're already agreed to be in another film? It's still up in the air.

I've had numerous offers, including a TV series. I have not made a moment on any of these offers, and also I'm producing my own movie. And that's what primarily I'm working on right now, so that's taken up most of my time. I'm also writing a book, so all of that takes up time. So contrary to what Jim Carrier wrote about in the post, my calendar is not filled up with confrontations and protests, and stunts, as he put it with protests and stunts. It's filled up with what I do well in life, and that is enjoy it. I'm a dinosaur, according to some of my own people, and a relic of the past, according to Mr. Rednecks, and now I'm a fascist, let's see, in my 25 years of being an American man, I've been labeled a communist, a lucky for the CIA, a fascist, and probably every

dirty name you can think of, along with some good names. What are some of those good names for the people calling you? My favorite is to call me a patriot, one of the most humbling that they call me is a leader. So anyway, I read, I don't know if this is true or not, but that you feel as though there are ways that you need to change in order to become an elder. One of them had to do it, your level of anger. Oh yes, I already took care of that. I went through treatment, and I'm well on my way to become a patient and wise elder. That's my aspiration.

I see you went through treatment, would you care to elaborate on that, or would you be very proud to elaborate? You see, in order to be a good parent, you have to learn your parenting skills from your parents. If your people were forced into boarding schools, your entire people, forced into boarding schools in this century, like my people were, well of course then those people who were forced into boarding schools could not learn parenting skills. So as a result, when they became parents, they were bad parents. So their children learned that same, and it exact debates itself from generation to generation. So it becomes worse. I knew that my anger was in the ways of me becoming a patient person, and in order to be wise

you have to be patient, and you cannot be uncontrollably angry like I was. Now I have been through all the rituals of my people. I have been with, and I believe in our spiritual way of life, and I've participated that to the fullest extent possible, but that wasn't what makes me angry. I went to my people to tell them what my plans were to go to a white institution to find out why I'm angry, to a person they all advised against it for me going, and I told everyone to a person that everything Indian, that isn't what makes me angry, and I want to find out what does. Well, I found out that I had very low self-esteem, and I understood, and they approached me with the family of origin concepts, where you just deal with your birth parents and

or the people who raised you to find out your behaviors, you get to recognize your behaviors with good and bad, and then you receive the tools to deal with those behaviors. I am now not as angry, in fact I'm nowhere near as angry as I was prior to treatment. That so inspired me is that one of my projects, one of the institutions that aim is going to be found, through me, is I'm going to put up a treatment center based on the family of origin concept, and utilizing our own cultural values so that you can reach the same healthy attitude that I was able to reach through this non-Indian treatment center in Tucson. So that's why I'm very proud, and I do know that every Indian needs treatment, and it's the simple fact that one of their forebears are all of their forebears at one point where

in boarding school, not learning, parenting, good parenting skills. Have you given up on efforts to hold the US government accountable for violating the treaty of 1868? Hell no, United States government is always going to be accountable until it self-destructs, which is well on its way to doing, and I'm elated that it's happening in my lifetime. You ran for president and eighty-three when the flurry went, and you've allied yourself with the West Farrakhan and more market office. People have spoken disparaging of that, but it sounds to me like you probably had pretty good reason to do that, a reason that a lot of people don't understand probably because the newspapers haven't really reported it.

What's the reason why you ran for president with life when I allied yourself? I'm glad you asked that question, because that does point up the shallowness of American journalism and the laziness thereof. It's incredible that I could be charged with being allied with this variety of people and no one hasn't peaked anybody's interest. It's amazing to me, Larry Flint, probably unknowns to America, but you know through his gross magazine, Hustler Magazine, he was the first one to bring forth to the attention of America about missing children. He was, and that's fact, that's provable fact, okay?

He's a good man, I believe, I know him personally, and we had a plan. He wanted to run for president as a Republican. This was for the 1984. He chose me as an Indian because he knew Indians, he did a voice, who had a $20 million war chest. We hired some campaign advisors, campaign experience, campaign people, public relations, all of the whole bit, and we developed a plan of action to make it a very short. We're going to get the necessary 20 states through the primary system to get him nominated at the Republican Convention. We had that plan of action, and in fact, we were going to get, we had picked Wisconsin

where we were going to get the Indian delegates to the Republican Convention picked. And those delegates were, of course, places named nomination. That's Ronald Reagan's time. You know, it was going to create massive chaos within the Republican Party. We knew we wouldn't get to the point where we'd actually, he'd actually get nominated. They would have to sit down in the background and make some deals, okay? That was our purpose. His main concern was the First Amendment, that's why he was a one-ish. He candidly, but you know, hell, it was going to go on for the right, getting that back room. Well, because of his own egocentricism, we failed. He wouldn't miss him, something like, you know, parole back in July, when I listened to his advisors, so everyone dropped away, including me. That was Larry Flynn.

That was always an admirer of mama kadafi, because I couldn't understand why a country of three million people could bring about so much hate from the right-wing Republicans, like Reagan, you know, bring forth so much hate. Can't see a three million people. Absolutely a threat to no one, not even the Sudanese, who whipped their ass on the field of battle, you know? But I went, when I went over there, visited at the 17th anniversary of their revolution when mama kadafi came to power. I saw that his love of uniform, his love of the military. I went there as an admirer of mama kadafi. I came away no longer admiring him, just saw him for what he is. Those people, I saw him riding around in an open car, open Jeep, as a matter of fact, ride drives riding into his people.

The president of the United States can't do that, you know? Now Castro doesn't, believe me, I'm anti-communist and I'm anti-socialist. He said, homework kadafi can ride around in an open Jeep in his country, maybe his mom, I'd seen him. I'm no longer than my review, though, because he's a military despot. Because of that, he's brought down the wrath of the United States upon his head, you know? Because he's a love of military. What was the other guy? Oh, Farrakhan from the nation of Islam. I've seen nothing wrong, I'm still an ally of Farrakhan. I love the man, he's been to our Sundance. He has supported us in the relocation, the forced relocation of the Navajo people. I have been at his side when he has vilified his own people to a greater degree than

he vilified the Jewish people. But the press in this country will only report when he vilifies Jewish people. But when he takes his own people to task even more severely than he does the Jewish people, that's not reported. And he gets standing ovation from his own people who he has just buried him, all right? Because he nobody's talked about all he has to do is listen to the man. Malcolm X was cheated the same way, in fact worse than his debt assassinated. Now, Malcolm X has looked up to as a very courageous man ahead of his time. You think that's how you'll be looked at someday?

Courageous ahead of your time. That's the last of my worries. When I'm dead, I'm gone. I'm in the next world. Russell Means is a national co-founder of the American Indian Movement, an oblala Lakota militant actor and small businessman. He's the father of ten children, grandfather of seventeen, and currently lives with his wife Gloria Grant means and their two children in a prefab blog home on Denei Land at Chinlee, Arizona. I'm Scott Schlegel. Thanks for listening.