http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bU31ixXzOY

Bill Means, a Lakota member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), which advocates for the rights of American Indians, discusses the events that led to AIM’s takeover and 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota.

The complex event that lead to the Wounded Knee incident begins with the American Indian Wars of the 1800s, which  many believe ended with the 1890 massacre of over 300 unarmed Lakota men, women and children by the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment near Wounded Knee Creek. The dead were left to stiffen in a blizzard and afterwords dumped in a mass grave. The massacre was one of many events which forced the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota peoples (commonly referred to as the “Sioux”) onto reservations where they would come to face many more injustices by the U.S. government.

Lakota Chief Big Foot Dead After the Wounded Knee Massacre. Source: Wikipedia.

In the 1970s, tribal tensions rose on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for a variety of reasons, one of them being the widespread opposition to tribal president, Richard Wilson. AIM and “traditional” Lakota accused Wilson of corruption, favoritism towards his family for rare and coveted job opportunities and unfair treatment of political opponents; Wilson was charged for but avoided an impeachment trial by the Oglala Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO), three weeks before the Wounded Knee incident.

On February 27, 1973, AIM led a march of 200 Oglala Lakota and AIM followers through the reservation to the town of Wounded Knee in protest of Wilson–following OSCRO’s failure to impeach him. AIM also protested the U.S. government’s failure to honor treaties with the American Indian peoples. The band of 200 protesters seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee; within the day, U.S. law enforcement including FBI agents surrounded the town and set up road blocks. Wilson’s paramilitary group, Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs), set up their own roadblocks and surrounded Wounded Knee as well; thus, the standoff began and quickly escalated.

Protestors Occupy Wounded Knee. Source: Revolution Newspaper.

For the three months of occupation, both sides often fired at the other; when firing waned, activists streamed into the town to support the occupiers. Different estimates agree that the U.S. government sent approximately half of a million dollars worth of support to U.S. marshals and law enforcement to the site, including armored vehicles, helicopters, snipers, machine guns and 130,000 rounds of ammunition. The standoff ended on May 8, 1973 after two American Indians were killed, one civil rights activist supporting the Lakota disappeared and two U.S. agents were wounded.

Wide media coverage made the incident well-known as it occurred;  many were sympathetic to the Lakota and American Indians during and after the incident for the injustices they experienced at the hands of the American government. The incident also grabbed the attention of the international community. AIM leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks were indicted due to the event, but their case was dismissed. Violence in Pine Ridge skyrocketed afterwards, with over 60 of Wilson’s tribal opponents dying in the next three years. Pine Ridge is still the poorest reservation in America and continues to battle health issues, poverty, unemployment and high suicide rates. Nevertheless, AIM’s standoff brought pride to many American Indians for its defiance against a government which so often mistreated, lied and forgot about its country’s first inhabitants.

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AIM Member on What Lead to Wounded Knee Occupation appeared first on Witnify.

“After the coup many people from the village joined the Khmer Rouge to fight against the new government…While the government had squashed this uprising, it was only the beginning of the civil war.”

The Lon Nol coup occurred on March 18, 1970. My uncle Om Ngat, and his wife, Om Ear were living in Takeo Province, Bati District in Chambak Commune. While my mother recalls the streets of Phnom Penh being very quiet that day, my aunt remembers a violent uprising in Chambak Commune in the subsequent days. I interviewed my aunt as she recalls tensions in her village soon afterwards and how the Khmer Rouge grew in her commune as a result: 

Wat Ansung. 2013. Source: ©Banyanblog.

On March 18, 1970 I was living in Takeo Province, Bati District in Chambak Commune. We owned a small shop in our house. We lived in the same house your mother grew up in, which was across the street from Wat Ansung (Ansung Pagoda). We didn’t know that there had been a coup in Phnom Penh. We didn’t hear the announcement because there weren’t many TVs or radios in our village at the time.

A few days afterwards we heard rumors from Phnom Penh that something big had happened, that the government had removed Prince Sihanouk from power. Some villagers said they later heard a message from Prince Sihanouk on the radio telling the people to rise against the enemies and go to the maquis to fight the government. At that point I knew there would be trouble because people in the village adored Prince Sihanouk. They were fiercely loyal to him and would die for him.

Soon after, perhaps that day or the next day, massive protests in Chambak commune broke out. It started in the afternoon when a group of people marched to Salah Temnah Kong Eng and took down a picture of Prince Sihanouk. The commune officials from the Chambak Salah Srok tried to prevent the villagers from doing so, but the people wouldn’t listen.  They took the picture down and carried it to Wat Ansung, which was about two kilometers from the Salah Srok.  Wat Ansung became the central meeting place for the protestors. Since our house was right in front of the pagoda and we had a shop, people would come and buy things, and ask for Om Ngat, who was well known in the village. They wanted him to come out and protest with them.  I told them he wasn’t home, that he was out playing football (soccer) by Tonle Bati.

Norodom Sihanouk. 1983. Source: Anefo, Dutch National Archives.

Towards the evening more and more people gathered at the pagoda. By this time your uncle came back. Then there was a knock at our door. This time the protestors wanted our megaphone to make announcements to rally the people. We gave it to them but told them we didn’t know how to use it since we had rented it from someone else. They took it and left us alone for the night.

The next morning, more and more people came to our village.  Droves of people were marching from as far as Phnom Chiso and they all gathered at Wat Ansung. The crowd got so large that the pagoda couldn’t fit everyone. There was an overflow of people and many of them stood in front of our house. I was scared. Your uncle was on his way to Phnom Penh to buy things for the shop and I was at home with your grandfather Kong Sreng and the children. Kong Sreng saw more and more people coming down the road carrying machetes. They were a rabble-rousing crowd. He told me to close the door. He was afraid that the protestors were drunk, would become violent and would burn down the house. I closed the doors to the house.

Later that morning villagers at the pagoda turned into a massive mob and knocked on our door again looking for Om Ngat. They went from house to house telling people to come out and protest.  In some cases they threatened to burn the house down. I told them he wasn’t home that he had gone to Phnom Penh. Shortly after I heard a noise in the back of our house. It was Om Ngat who snuck by the protestors. I let him in the back door. He told me he didn’t make it to Phnom Penh. The government had closed the roads going into the city. On his way back someone at the market told him that he needed to rush home because the mob was going to burn down his house.

The crowd had swelled to the hundreds, if not thousands, by the late morning. They left Wat Ansungand marched with the picture of the Prince to the hospital and then to the Salah Srok. There must have been thousands of people marching, wielding knives and machetes and screaming at the top of their lungs Jay-yo Samdach (Victory Prince). The workers at the Salah Srok must have been scared from the day before and called for help from Takeo Province. Earlier that day two big trucks carrying soldiers came. They stood in front of the Salah Srok waiting for the protestors.

Flag used by Khmer Rouge during their 1975 campaign. This design was replaced soon after their victory. Source: Creative Commons.

The Salah Srok was the final confrontation, soldiers against the angry mob. Even with the soldiers there carrying their guns, the protestors did not disperse. They were not intimidated. The soldiers warned them but the people wouldn’t move.  The people were defiant, they yelled Jay-yo Samdach, Jay-yo Samdach! Then it turned violent. The soldiers started shooting people indiscriminately. The crowd had scattered. I heard the shots and saw people running past our house screaming. I was terrified. Suddenly it was silent. The protestors went home. Eight people had died that day. Later in the afternoon the soldiers left. In the evening people went back to the Salah Srok to pick up the dead bodies to take to the hospital.

In the following days, I had heard that Khieu Samphan (a high ranking Khmer Rouge official) and some Khmer Rouge soldiers came to the village and setup a makeshift medical treatment area to tend to the wounded. The people who had protested were grateful to the Khmer Rouge for their help.  We reopened the shop following the protests and people would buy food, alcohol and medicine for the Khmer Rouge soldiers. After the coup many people from the village joined the Khmer Rouge to fight against the new government. That is how they grew in numbers in our commune. While the government had squashed this uprising, it was only the beginning of the civil war.

*All events are recalled to the best ability and any misstatements are unintentional*

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The Uprising in Takeo appeared first on Witnify.

Interview of Alice Paul By Robert S. Gallagher

How did you begin?

I went down to Washington on the seventh of December, 1912. All I had at the start was a list of people who had supported the movement, but when I tried to see them, I found that almost all of them had died or moved, and nobody knew much about them. So we were left with a tiny handful of people.

With all these obstacles how did you manage to organize the tremendous parade that greeted President-elect Wilson three months later?

Well, it wasn’t such a tremendous parade. We called it a procession. I don’t know whether there were five thousand or ten thousand marchers, maybe, but it wasn’t a very big one. The idea for such a parade had been discussed at the 1912 suffrage convention, although some of the delegates thought it was too big an undertaking. It was unusual. There had never been a procession of women for any cause under the sun, so people did want to go and see it.

The press estimated the crowd at a half million. Whose idea was it to have the parade the day before Wilson’s inaugural?

That was the only day you could have it if you were trying to impress the new President. The marchers came from all over the country at their own expense. We just sent letters everywhere, to every name we could find. And then we had a hospitality committee headed by Mrs. Harvey Wiley, the wife of the man who put through the first pure-food law in America. Mrs. Wiley canvassed all her friends in Washington and came up with a tremendous list of people who were willing to entertain the visiting marchers for a day or two. I mention these names to show what a wonderful group of people we had on our little committee.

Did you have any trouble getting a police permit?

No, although in the beginning the police tried to get us to march on Sixteenth Street, past the embassies and all. But from our point of view Pennsylvania Avenue was the place. So Mrs. Ebenezer Hill, whose husband was a Connecticut congressman and whose daughter Elsie was on our committee, she went to see the police chief, and we got our permit. We marched from the Capitol to the White House, and then on to Constitution Hall, which was the hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which many of our people were members of.

Didn’t the parade start a riot?

The press reports said that the crowd was very hostile, but it wasn’t hostile at all. The spectators were practically all tourists who had come for Wilson’s inauguration. We knew there would be a large turnout for our procession, because the company that put up the grandstands was selling tickets and giving us a small percentage. The money we got—it was a gift from heaven—helped us pay for the procession. I suppose the police thought we were only going to have a couple of hundred people, so they made no preparations. We were worried about this, so another member of our committee, Mrs. John Rogers, went the night before to see her brother-in-law, Secretary of War [Henry L.] Stimson, and he promised to send over the cavalry from Fort Myer if there was any trouble.

Did you need his help?

Yes, but not because the crowd was hostile. There were just so many people that they poured into the street, and we were not able to walk very far. So we called Secretary Stimson, and he sent over the troops, and they cleared the way for us. I think it took us six hours to go from the Capitol to Constitution Hall. Of course, we did hear a lot of shouted insults, which we always expected. You know, the usual things about why aren’t you home in the kitchen where you belong. But it wasn’t anything violent. Later on, when we were actually picketing the White House, the people did become almost violent. They would tear our banners out of our hands and that sort of thing.

The national board members were at the head of it. I walked in the college section. We all felt very proud of ourselves, walking along in our caps and gowns. One of the largest and loveliest sections was made up of uniformed nurses. It was very impressive. Then we had a foreign section, and a men’s section, and a Negro women’s section from the National Association of Colored Women, led by Mary Church Terrell. She was the first colored woman to graduate from Oberlin, and her husband was a judge in Washington. Well, Mrs. Terrell got together a wonderful group to march, and then, suddenly, our members from the South said they wouldn’t march. Oh, the newspapers just thought this was a wonderful story and developed it to the utmost. I remember that that was when the men’s section came to the rescue. The leader, a Quaker I knew, suggested that the men march between the southern delegations and the colored women’s section, and that finally satisfied the southern women. That was the greatest hurdle we had..

If the parade didn’t cause any real trouble, why was there a subsequent congressional investigation that resulted in the ouster of the district police chief?

The principal investigation was launched at the request of our women delegates from Washington, which was a suffrage state. These women were so indignant about the remarks from the crowd. And I remember that Congressman Kent was very aroused at the things that were shouted at his daughter, Elizabeth, who was riding on the California float, and he was among the first in Congress to demand an investigation into why the police hadn’t been better prepared. As I said, the police just didn’t take our little procession seriously. I don’t think it was anything intentional. We didn’t testify against the police, because we felt it was just a miscalculation on their part.

To view the full interview, visit the American Heritage website.

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[Text] Interview With Suffragette Alice Paul on the 1913 Parade appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1F5wV4kBX4

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. On November 24, 2014, a grand jury reached a decision not to indict Wilson for the shooting. The video above shows reactions to the grand jury’s decision, both in Ferguson and in New York. At a barbershop in Ferguson, an employee speaks to concerns about rioting, saying: “I’ve been working here for five years and not one time have I token my equipment home, and I’m doing it tonight… I can tell you for sure, 100%, if he’s innocent [Wilson], they’re going to burn this city down. There’s no doubt about it.”

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People React To Ferguson Verdict appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uXd4RUFwoY

Former mayor of Washington, D.C. Marion Barry explains why the struggle for civil rights is not over and the power of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.

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Marion Barry: ‘The Struggle Is Not Over’ appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNn7Hr5Xnlc

Journalist Harald Doornbos was in Libya during the Arab Spring. In this 2011 Ted Talk X in Amsterdam, he presents the souvenirs he brought back from a country in the middle of a revolution.

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Journalist Harald Doornbos Survived the Arab Spring appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a-sFuzmloE

“The whole world is watching!” The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago, Illinois. Both before and during the convention, rallies and marches were held primarily in protest of President Lyndon B. Johnson and his Vietnam War policies.  On the fourth day of the convention, demonstrators held the only rally for which they had a permit. When a boy attending the rally tried to lower a U.S. flag to half-mast, violent confrontations ensued between police and protestors.

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Background on the Trial of the Chicago Seven appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgG7Ip6NiBo

Protestor Felix Rivera-Pitre explains the moment when a NYPD police offer struck him. Rivera-Pitre says that he did not do anything to provoke such an attack: “He singled me out of the whole crowd…I don’t know why.”

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Attacked by a Cop: ‘I Remember Being Dragged’ appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y-zZpo_jEw

Cynthia Yee, a teacher at the Josiah Quincy School, describes how the 1965 Racial Imbalance Act, which desegregated the public schools in Boston, changed the make-up of her classroom based in Chinatown. Yee describes how the Boston Busing Crisis brought together children from many races: “It was a challenging year because we had to make it all meld. Everybody was new to the situation.” She recalls how some African-American children from Roxbury had never known Chinese people before and how some white families decided to put their children in private schools.

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Teacher on Impact of Boston Busing Crisis in Chinatown appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaz8sVaK8s4

Between the years of 1966 and 1976, Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong helped to lead what is now known as the Cultural Revolution. This was a time when his Communist Party was worried that capitalistic beliefs were going to take over Chinese society. Because of this threat, Mao Zedong and his group of young followers known as the Red Guards created a rebellion that turned violent very quickly. Within this video, victims of the Cultural Revolution, as well as former members of the Red Guards, talk about witnessing this violent time in Chinese history. Images of temples and villages being ransacked are seen as some victims such as Yu Luowen talk about their family homes being raided as they watched their parents get beaten for being capitalists. Others who were members of the Red Guards, like Xiao Ming, explain why they thought they were doing the right thing during this time period. Ming says he felt that his victims were responsible for the cultural imperialism that had hurt people like him in the past and deserved to get punished. Zhu Danian, another witness, explains that Zedong legitimized the widespread brutality because his political strategy has always been to start a revolution.

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Voices of Victims and Mao’s Red Guards appeared first on Witnify.