Russell Means

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Russell Means (1987)

Russell Means ( Lakota : Oyate Wacinyapin , people's helper ; born November 10, 1939 in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota ; † October 22, 2012 in Porcupine , South Dakota;) was a member of the founding phase of the American Indian Movement since 1969 (AIM), an organization that advocates for Indian rights in the United States .

Means was one of the most popular speakers for the AIM, especially in the 1970s, when the AIM gained international attention through spectacular campaigns such as the occupation of the village of Wounded Knee .

From 1992 he was also active as an actor and voice actor.

Live and act

Means at an anti-war rally (November 2001)

The Lakota - Sioux - Indians grew up in northern California , where his father Hank on a shipyard worked. In 1958 he graduated from high school in San Leandro .

For some time he lived in San Francisco , where in 1964 he and his father and about 40 other Indians made a brief claim to the prison island of Alcatraz . Alcatraz was occupied 5 years later, in 1969, by Indians of the organization Indians of all tribes ( English for Indians of all tribes ) for several months.

He attended various vocational schools and colleges . In 1968 he was director of the Center of American Indians in Cleveland , where he attracted some attention when he tried unsuccessfully to the baseball team Cleveland Indians to move to their name and mascot Chief Wahoo give up.

In 1969 he joined the American Indian Movement (AIM) and founded a local chapter in Cleveland.

He was a charismatic speaker and activist in many of AIM's actions . Means was also one of the supporters of the spectacular 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee in the Pine Ridge Reservation, during which the AIM proclaimed the Oglala nation, independent of the corrupt and violent reservation board member Dick Wilson, and an armed conflict with Wilson's Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs) like the FBI and the National Guard provoked. Wounded Knee was the site of the last major massacre by the US Army of around 300 defenseless Lakota on December 29, 1890.

He maintained good contacts with the writer Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich , who processed her acquaintance with Means in the last volumes of her pentalogy The Blood of the Eagle .

Russell Means in his 1992 film role as Chingachgook

Russell Means is also known for his work as an actor. In 1992 he took on the role of Chingachgook in Michael Mann's literary film adaptation The Last of the Mohicans and was then hired as an actor for over 30 other films by various directors. So he was to be seen in Natural Born Killers , Pathfinder - track of the warrior and Unearthed, among others. He also spoke the character of Chief Powhatan in Disney's Pocahontas in the American version .

In 2007 Means caused a sensation when he and several other Indian rights activists proclaimed the independence of Lakota Country and declared the treaties with the USA to be invalid.

Means died of esophageal cancer at the age of 72 .

Filmography (selection)

Movie

literature

  • Russell Means: Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means. Griffin, 1996, ISBN 978-0-312-14761-7 , 592 pages
  • Bayard Johnson, Russell Means: If You've Forgotten The Names Of The Clouds, You've Lost Your Way: An Introduction to American Indian Thought and Philosophy. BookBaby, 2012, 88 pages

Web links

Commons : Russell Means  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russell Means, Indian activist, actor, dies at 72 ( Memento of the original from August 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.capecodonline.com
  2. ↑ AFP, December 19, 2007, Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US ( Memento of December 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Los Angeles Times: Russell Means dies at 72; American Indian rights activist, actor (October 23, 2012) (accessed October 23, 2012)
personal data
SURNAME Means, Russell
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Indian activist, member of the American Indian Movement
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Pine Ridge Reservation , South Dakota
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 2012
Place of death Porcupine , South Dakota