Timeline of American Indian activist Russell Means, who died Monday at the age of 72.
Nov. 10, 1939: Russell Charles Means born at Porcupine on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, the oldest of four sons of Harold and Theodora Feather Means.
1942: Means is 3 when his family resettles in the San Francisco Bay area. He graduates in 1958 from San Leandro (Calif.) High School.
Late 1960s: Means works for a year with the Office of Economic Opportunity on the Rosebud Reservation, where he comes to know several legal activists who are managing legal action on behalf of the Lakota people.
1968: Means joins the American Indian Movement.
Thanksgiving Day 1970: Means and other AIM activists stage their first protest in Boston, seizing the Mayflower II, a replica ship of the Mayflower, to protest the Puritans’ and United States’ mistreatment of Native Americans.
Late 1970: Means is one of the leaders of AIM’s takeover of Mount Rushmore.
October-November, 1972: Means participates in the Trail of Broken Treaties, a cross-country protest that starts in California and culminates in Washington, D.C., to bring attention to American Indian issues such as treaty rights, living conditions and inadequate housing. It culminates with the takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building.
Feb. 3, 1973: Means, Dennis Banks and other members of AIM riot at the Custer County Courthouse, upset at a self-defense verdict for a white man accused of stabbing an American Indian to death at Buffalo Gap.
Feb. 27, 1973: Means, Banks and AIM members head a 71-day takeover of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The armed standoff involves more than 300 Lakota and AIM activists against FBI and state law enforcement officials.
April 30, 1974: Means and other AIM members clash with police at the Minnehaha County Courthouse during a trial over the previous year’s Custer County Courthouse disturbance. Means eventually serves just over a year in the state penitentiary for his involvement in the Sioux Falls riot.
1974: Means resigns from AIM to run for the presidency of his native Oglala Sioux Tribe against the incumbent president, Richard Wilson. Wilson wins by 200 votes.
1977: Means works with the United Nations to establish the offices of the International Indian Treaty Council.
1985-86: With AIM membership divided in part over differences among members regarding support for the indigenous peoples in Nicaragua, Means announces his support for the Miskito tribal group MISURASATA, which is allied with the Contras. He travels to the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua in these two years on fact-finding tours. Some members of AIM support the Sandinistas of the national government.
1987: Means runs for the nomination of president of the Libertarian Party, losing to Ron Paul.
Jan. 8, 1988: Means holds a press conference to announce his retirement from AIM – for the sixth time – saying it has achieved its goals.
1992-2005: Means appears as an actor in numerous films and television movies, starting in 1992 when he is the chief Chingachgook in “Last of the Mohicans.” In 1996, he is Arrowhead in the made-for-television movie “The Pathfinder.” He also appears in “Natural Born Killers” (1994), as Jim Thorpe in “Windrunner” (1995), as Sitting Bull in “Buffalo Girls: (1995), and has a cameo in the miniseries “Into the West” (2005)
1995: Means publishes his autobiography, Where White Men Fear to Tread.
Nov. 3, 1999: Means and Robert Pictou-Branscombe, a maternal cousin of Anna Mae Aquash from Canada, hold a press conference in Denver to discuss the slow progress of the government’s investigation into Aquash’s murder. Both Branscombe and Means accuse Vernon Bellecourt, a high-ranking leader of AIM, of having ordered the execution of Aquash. Means says Clyde Bellecourt, a founder of AIM, had ensured that it was carried out at the Pine Ridge Reservation.
2001: Means tries to run as an independent for governor of New Mexico, but fails to satisfy procedural requirements and is not selected for the ballot.
January 2003: Gov. Bill Janklow pardons Means for his conviction in the 1974 riot at the Minnehaha County Courthouse.
2004: Means runs for president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, but loses to Cecelia Fire Thunder, the first woman elected president of the tribe.
Dec. 20, 2007: Means announces the withdrawal of a small group of Lakota Sioux from all treaties with the U.S. government, declaring the Republic of Lakotah as a sovereign nation, with property rights over thousands of square miles in South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana.
August 2011: Means is diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
Oct. 22, 2012: Means dies at his home in Porcupine.read more
