In her memoir Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog recounts her experience as an activist in the American Indian Movement (AIM). The movement advocated for Native Americans’ civil rights and a revival of the indigenous traditions that the U.S. government had long been trying to suppress. While Mary acknowledges that many people saw AIM’s radical—and sometimes violent—methods as controversial, she also believes that AIM “gave [Native Americans] a lift badly needed at the time. It defined [their] goals […] It set a style for Indians to imitate.” AIM was a movement that particularly resonated with young people and elders in the Native American community. Middle-aged adults, on the other hand, were “a lost generation,” a group that had generally given up trying to resist forced assimilation and violence committed against their people. Mary’s mother and grandmother embodied this attitude, both believing that the only way to succeed in a white-dominated society was to assimilate. But Mary makes it clear that such passivity only leads to continued oppression—activism and resistance are the only ways to bring about change for oneself and for one’s people. And, even when one’s actions don’t achieve the desired change, resisting can foster a sense of empowerment in marginalized communities while also setting an example for future generations.
By depicting how assimilation and compliance have negatively impacted Native Americans, Mary shows that passivity does not mitigate oppression. Mary recognizes that many Native Americans assimilated to white society out of necessity, but that this choice nevertheless had devastating impacts. For instance, during the end of the 19th century, the chief of the Sicangu Lakota, Spotted Tail, decided to stop battling white settlers because he saw that he and his people were out-numbered and out-resourced. But while his passivity initially saved lives by avoiding war, his people were then forced onto reservations and forced to assimilate to white American culture. Once under the control of the U.S. government, future generations of Native Americans were burdened with poverty and ongoing cultural genocide. As an AIM activist, Mary witnessed how passivity often emboldened oppressors to continue oppressing others. During both the Trail of Broken Treaties and the Occupation of Wounded Knee (demonstrations that AIM took part in), U.S. government officials were dismissive of activists and their demands until the activists took extreme action. As she put it, “as long as [the activists] ‘behaved nicely’ nobody gave a damn about [them].”
Activism and resistance, on the other hand, can lead to meaningful change in the fight against oppression. Mary’s experiences with the AIM show that in order to get the attention of those in power, one must actively fight against them. This was the case during the Trail of Broken Treaties and the Occupation of Wounded Knee. On both occasions, Native American activists initially tried to reason with U.S. government officials. But when it became clear that the officials would not respect the Native Americans’ demands, the activists took more extreme action: taking over the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building and occupying the town of Wounded Knee. The government—and the nation as a whole—only listened to what AIM had to say when the activists broke the government’s expectations of quiet “respectability.” Activism also led to several key legal victories for the Native American community. Among these was Mary’s husband, Leonard’s, legal battle, which occurred after the U.S. government imprisoned him for political reasons. The book implies that the government fabricated a reason to arrest Leonard because they saw him as a political threat, as he encouraged young people to resist complying with white society and the U.S. government. Neither Mary, Leonard, nor their friends accepted this injustice. By fundraising, raising awareness, and organizing a team of dedicated attorneys, Mary and Leonard’s supporters secured Leonard’s release.
Mary also argues that even when activism doesn’t accomplish its aims, it empowers activists and boosts their morale while also setting a precedent for future generations to follow. Many of the fights—both ideological and physical—that Mary recounts in her memoir do not accomplish the fighters’ goals. But this doesn’t negate the positive impact that these events had on Native Americans. For example, when reflecting on the legacy of the Trail of Broken Treaties, Mary concedes that “from the practical point of view, nothing had been achieved.” Yet AIM activists did achieve a great moral victory, for “[they] had faced White America collectively, not as individual tribes.” By doing so, they set an example of unity between indigenous nations and resistance against the U.S. government, which future generations could look to for guidance and inspiration. Mary also stresses that activism feels more empowering than passively accepting one’s oppression. In other words, part of the value of resisting lies in the fact that one is taking part in efforts to change an unjust situation. As a Native American woman, Mary knows that she will encounter racist and sexist persecution no matter what she does—so she might as well fight while she can. Marginalized people are generally limited to two difficult options: they can either assimilate to the system and accept their fate, or they can fight against it. At one point, Mary explains that if one tries to be “responsible [and] respectable […] [one] get[s] nowhere. If [one] approach[es] [the oppressors] as a militant[,] [one may] get nowhere either […] but at least [one] do[es]n’t feel so shitty.” And given that resistance does sometimes generate meaningful change, Mary makes it clear that activism—not passivity—is the preferred way to face oppression.
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Activism and Resistance Quotes in Lakota Woman
The Crow Dogs, the members of my husband’s family, have no such problems of identity. They don’t need the sun to tan them, they are full-bloods—the Sioux of the Sioux […] They have no shortage of legends. Every Crow Dog seems to be a legend in himself, including the women. They became outcasts in their stronghold at Grass Mountain rather than being whitemanized. They could not be tamed, made to wear a necktie or go to a Christian church. All during the long years when practicing Indian beliefs was forbidden and could be punished with jail, they went right on having their ceremonies, their sweat baths and sacred dances.
The whites destroyed the tiyospaye, not accidentally, but as a matter of policy. The close-knit clan, set in its old ways, was a stumbling block in the path of the missionary and government agent, its traditions and customs a barrier to what the white man called “progress” and “civilizations.” And so the government tore the tiyospaye apart and forced the Sioux into the kind of relationship now called the “nuclear family”—forced upon each couple their individually owned allotment of land […] So the great brainwashing began, those who did not like to have their brains washed being pushed farther and farther into the back country into isolation and starvation. The civilizers did a good job on us, especially among the half-bloods, using the stick-and-carrot method, until now there is neither the tiyospaye nor a white-style nuclear family left, just Indian kids without parents.
I haven’t touched a drop of liquor for years, ever since I felt there was a purpose to my life, learned to accept myself for what I was. I have to thank the Indian movement for that, and Grandfather Peyote, and the pipe.
A few years back the favorite sport of white state troopers and cops was to arrest young Indian girls on a drunk-and-disorderly, even if the girls were sober, take them to the drunk tanks in their jails, and there rape them […] Indian girls accusing white cops are seldom taken seriously in South Dakota. “You know how they are,” the courts are told, “they’re always asking for it.” Thus there were few complaints for rapes or, as a matter of fact, for forced sterilizations. Luckily this is changing as our women are less reluctant to bring these things into the open.
In the beginning AIM was mainly confined to St. Paul and Minneapolis. The early AIM people were mostly ghetto Indians, often from tribes which had lost much of their language, traditions, and ceremonies. It was when they came to us on the Sioux reservations that they began to learn about the old ways. We had to learn from them, too. We Sioux had lived very isolated […] AIM opened a window for us through which the wind of the 1960s and early ‘70s could blow, and it was no gentle breeze but a hurricane that whirled us around. It was after the traditional reservation Indians and the ghetto kids had gotten together that AIM became a force nationwide. It was flint striking flint, lighting a spark which grew into a flame at which we could warm ourselves after a long, long winter.
In the end a compromise was reached. The government said they could not go on negotiating during Election Week, but they would appoint two high administration officials to seriously consider our twenty demands. Our expenses to get home would be paid. Nobody would be prosecuted. Of course, our twenty points were never gone into afterward. From the practical point of view, nothing had been achieved. As usual we had bickered among ourselves. But morally it had been a great victory. We had faced White America collectively, not as individual tribes. We had stood up to the government and gone through our baptism of fire.
The half-breeds, the iyeskas, I thought, never really cared for anybody but themselves, having learned that “wholesome selfishness” alone brought the blessings of civilization. The full-bloods have a heart […] They are willing to share whatever happiness they have. They sit on their land which has a sacred meaning for them, even if it brings them no income. The iyeskas have no land because they sold theirs long ago. Whenever some white businessmen come to the res trying to make a deal to dig for coal or uranium, the iyeskas always say, “Let’s do it. Let’s get that money. Buy a new car and a color TV.” The full-bloods say nothing. They just sit on their little patches of land and don’t budge. It is because of them that there are still some Indians left.
It is the government which made me into a militant. If you approach them hat in hand as a “responsible, respectable” apple, red outside, white inside, you get nowhere. If you approach them as a militant you get nowhere either, except giving them an excuse to waste you, but at least you don’t feel so shitty.
Life was so hard for our people—starving, fenced in, without horses or weapons. The message brought them hope. And so they began to dance and sing, to bring back the buffalo, to bring back the old world of the Indians which wasičun had destroyed, the world they had loved so much and for whose return they were praying.
I had been promised that I would not be arrested, but the moment I passed the roadblock I was hustled to the Pine Ridge jail. They did not book me, just took all my things away and were about to take my baby too. They told me I would have to wait, they could not put me in the tank before the Welfare came for my baby. Being poor, unwed, and a no-good rabble-rouser from the Knee made me an unfit mother. The child would have to be taken to a foster home.
The first Crow Dog was an outcast but also something of a hero. The Crow Dogs wrapped themselves in their pride as in a blanket. […] The first Crow Dog had shown them the way. As a chief he had the right to wear a war bonnet, but he never did. Instead he found somewhere an old, discarded white man’s cloth cap with a visor and to the top of it he fastened an eagle feather […] He used to say: “This white man’s cap that I am wearing means that I must live in the wasičun’s world, under his government. The eagle feather means that I, Crow Dog, do not let the wasičun’s world get the better of me, that I remain an Indian until the day I die.” […] [T]hat old cap became in the people’s mind a thing more splendid than any war bonnet.
Annie Mae still traveled a lot. Wherever Indians fought for their rights, Annie Mae was there. She helped the Menominee warriors take over a monastery. She told me that she was packing a gun. She said, “If any of my brothers are in a position where they’re being shot at, or being killed, I go there to fight with them. I’d rather die than stand by and see them destroyed.”
But always, always I felt, and was enraptured by, [Leonard’s] tremendous power—raw power, spiritual Indian power coming from deep within him. It was raw because, never having been at school and being unable to read or write, there is no white-man intellectualism in him. At the same time, his thinking and ideas are often extremely sophisticated—unique, original, even frightening.
[Leonard Crow Dog] could not understand why the government was after him. He did not consider himself a radical […] He thought himself strictly a religious leader, a medicine man. But that was exactly why he was dangerous. The young city Indians talking about revolution and waving guns find no echo among the full-bloods in the back country. But they will listen to a medicine man, telling them in their own language: “Don’t sell your land, don’t sell Grandmother Earth to the strip-mining outfits and the uranium companies. Don’t sell your water.” This kind of advice is a threat to the system and gets you into the penitentiary.
With all that information pouring in upon Merhige, the judge began feeling twinges of conscience. He called us to his court in Richmond. A long trestle table in front of his bench was piled two feet high with petitions on behalf of Crow Dog. The judge pointed to this mass of papers, saying with a grin, “This is just the tip of the iceberg. We don’t have enough space in this courtroom to bring them all out. We have letters here from Nigeria, Java, Greece, Japan, Sweden, Peru, and Austria. I just wonder how folks so far away can know more about this case than we do.” Then he said in a low, matter-of-fact voice: “I resentence Crow Dog to time served. I order his instant release.”
