American Indian Movement : What Did They Suffer?

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American Civil Movement- without the images and their captions American Indian Movement (AIM) Who were they? What did they suffer? The American Indian Movement (AIM) began with 200 US native ‘Indians’ who called out for a meeting by a group of Native American Communist Activist leaders: George Mitchell, Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt as well as Russell Means. The latter 20th century saw a great increase of institutionalized racism and legal discrimination against citizens of African descent in the United States. Throughout this post-Civil War period, poll taxes, acts of terror such as lynching (often perpetrated by groups such as the reborn Ku Klux Klan, founded in the Reconstruction South) and discriminatory laws such as ‘grandfather clauses’ (which prevented poor and illiterate African American former slaves and their descendants from voting, but without denying poor and illiterate whites the right to vote) kept black Americans alienated, particularly in the Southern States. Was the AIM inevitable, even if these individuals hadn’t formed it? The American Indian Movement was the symbolic unity of Indians who are protesting and fighting for the rights to be treated equally. The movement was forwarded by people, who have suffered racial consequences and segregation, people who unite together with courage to direct their lives towards a better path and determined to create racial harmony within the US. Therefore, even without the inspirational individuals such as Russell Means, the movement may still have occurred. Evidence before the creation of the AIM have shown the dissatisfaction of American Indians towards the imbalance of rights in the society. The so-called “justifying” law at that time greatly favours white men over... ... middle of paper ... ...ence. However, is that what we would have done if we were them? There are many better ways that could have solved these chasms of racism between native and non-indigenous Americans during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Our methods are rather abstract, but if there are even several White people supporting and raising awareness of the racism towards Indigenous Americans, it would go a long way to hire people to teach children (esp. non Indigenous) how racism is wrong and show that mixing different ethnics in one community could work well. I personally think that although violence and media attention worked well in the end, they weren’t necessary. Now it 's up to us as current members of the global community. Thank you for going through the journey with us, and hope YOU can consider the past Native American history as a inspiration to promote multiculturalism and anti-racism!

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