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Clyde Howard Bellecourt (May 8, 1936 – January 11, 2022) was a Native American civil rights organizer. His Ojibwe language name is Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun, which means "Thunder Before the Storm". He founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1968 with Dennis Banks, Eddie Benton-Banai, and George Mitchell. His elder brother, Vernon Bellecourt, was also active in the movement.
Under Bellecourt's leadership, AIM succeeded in raising awareness of tribal issues. AIM shone a light on police harassment in Minneapolis. Bellecourt founded successful "survival schools" in the Twin Cities to help Native American children learn their traditional cultures. In 1972, he initiated the march to Washington, D.C. called the Trail of Broken Treaties, hoping to renegotiate federal-tribal nations' treaties. Non-profit groups he founded are designed to improve economic development for Native Americans.
In his youth, Bellecourt fought against authorities, believing that they did not treat his family and other Indians with respect. His parents told him to think about his education and do as well as he could. The years in school were not pleasant. As a boy, he attended a reservation Catholic mission school run by strict nuns of a Benedictine order. Young Bellecourt snared rabbits, and harvested wild rice and sugar beets until he was 11 when he was arrested for truancy and delinquency, and sent away to the Red Wing State Training School.
By the time he was released four years later, the Bellecourt family had moved to Minneapolis in the 1950s, under the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 whereby the federal government encouraged moves to settings where there might be more job opportunities. They found the city difficult, and Bellecourt reacted to perceived discrimination and feeling out of place.
He received detentions at school. Getting involved with bad influences, Bellecourt ultimately incurred criminal charges. He was convicted and sentenced to the adult correctional facility at St. Cloud for a succession of offenses, including burglary and robbery.
At the age of 25, Bellecourt was transferred to Stillwater Prison in the eponymous city of Minnesota, where he served out the remainder of his sentence. There he met numerous other Native Americans, many of them also Ojibwe. Among those were Eddie Benton-Banai (Ojibwe, 1931–2020), who had started a prison cultural program called the American Indian Folklore Group for Native Americans, and Dennis Banks (Ojibwe, 1937–2017). After working together in prison, they decided to create a similar program in Minneapolis, to aid urban Indians through exposure to their history, traditional culture, and spirituality.
At first they called themselves “Concerned Indian Americans,” but changed to "aim" at the suggestion of an elder woman. Banks wrote in 2004 that Bellecourt was a "man in a hurry to get things done," who "spoke with such intensity that his enthusiasm swept over us like a storm. In that moment, AIM was born." Bellecourt was elected the group's first chairman, Dennis Banks field director, and Charles Deegan vice chairman.
They began to monitor arrests of American Indians made by the local police department to ensure their civil rights were observed and they were treated with dignity and respect. Benton-Banai had also worked on this issue before serving time in Stillwater Prison.
In 1970, he led a takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building in Littleton, Colorado, to demand that Native Americans be put in charge of the BIA. The protest spread across the country, with eight BIA offices shut down.
In 1971, Bellecourt visited the Chicago Indian Village (CIV), an inter-tribal group protesting to raise awareness of and solutions for poor housing conditions for Native Americans in Chicago. The CIV had occupied the former site of a battery of Nike anti-aircraft missiles at Belmont Harbor in Chicago.
The FBI was able to splinter the movement and as of the early 21st century it survives, weakened, in two factions, one in Colorado and formerly led by Russell Means, and the second in Minnesota and formerly led by the Bellecourt brothers, all now deceased. The Minnesota faction is incorporated under Minnesota and U.S. law and has succeeded in several legislative and social efforts. When it broke off, the Colorado faction accused the Minnesotans of various crimes: for the most part, the Bellecourts labeling themselves national AIM officers fraudulently, because national leaders do not exist in a grassroots organization.
Finding no accommodations elsewhere, about 1,000 activists occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They allegedly caused extensive damage to treaty files and other records of the history between the federal government and the tribes. They called for ending corruption and mismanagement within the BIA. Bellecourt, Banks and other AIM leaders negotiated with the federal government. Following an occupation from November 3 until November 9, the Nixon administration gave the activists $66,000 in transportation costs in exchange for a peaceful outcome. A Congressional hearing estimated the damage at $250.000. The occupation of the BIA headquarters substantially altered AIM.
Bellecourt became a negotiator. Eventually, he, Russell Means, and Carter Camp held a meeting with a representative for U.S. President Nixon, when they negotiated an audit of Wilson's finances and an investigation of his private militia, the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs).
After leaving Pine Ridge, Bellecourt and Means were arrested in Pierre, South Dakota; the court set a bond at $25,000. They were served a restraining order against approaching closer than five miles to the town of Wounded Knee. After being released on bond, Bellecourt went on a fundraising tour across the United States, trying to raise money for the activists still occupying Wounded Knee. Charges against Means and Banks were dropped, and none were brought against Bellecourt.
After the occupation of Wounded Knee ended, Bellecourt hosted seminars and other public appearances. He claimed that "the seminar represents the beginning of an educational effort by AIM and a turning point for the organization, which hopes to avoid violent confrontations in the future." Throughout the rest of his speaking tour about Wounded Knee and the BIA takeover, Bellecourt would maintain that Christianity, the Office of Education, and the Federal government were enemies to Indians. He defended AIM actions at the BIA and Wounded Knee. Bellecourt said, "We are the landlords of the country, it is the end of the month, the rent is due, and AIM is going to collect."
In 1977, Bellecourt traveled to the United Nations where he testified on U.S. mistreatment of Native Americans.
Bellecourt described this time with regret, "I should never have gotten involved in drug dealing, but I did. I've made mistakes in my life, and this one was one of the worst; I have had to make peace with it."
Developed as an independent charter school in 1999, when it was considered an option of the public school district, Heart of the Earth took over ownership of its site. It continued to offer a wide variety of independent cultural programs, awarded scholarships to Indian students, and developed indigenous language research. The charter was revoked in 2008 because serious financial irregularities were discovered, and the school was closed.
In all, more Native American students graduated from the school in its 40-year history than from all Minneapolis Public Schools combined.
Bellecourt continued to direct national and international AIM activities. He coordinated the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media, which has long protested sports teams use of Native American mascots and names, urging them to end such practices; the Washington Redskins finally dropped their mascot in 2020 in response to years of protests. He also led Heart of the Earth, Inc., an interpretive center located behind the site of AIM's former 'survival school', which operated from 1972 to 2008 in Minneapolis.
Other organizations founded in part by Bellecourt include the Elaine M. Stately Peacemaker Center for Indian youth; the AIM Patrol, which provides security for the Minneapolis Indian community; the Legal Rights Center; MIGIZI Communications, Inc.; the Native American Community Clinic; Women of Nations Eagle Nest Shelter; and Board of American Indian OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Center), a job program to help Native Americans get full-time jobs.Mosedale, Mike (February 16, 2000). "Bury My Heart", City Pages.
In 2016, Bellecourt participated in resistance to an underground oil pipeline at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stated, "Clyde Bellecourt sparked a movement in Minneapolis that spread worldwide. His fight for justice and fairness leaves behind a powerful legacy that will continue to inspire people across our state and nation for generations to come". According to Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, Neegawnwaywidung was a "civil rights leader who fought for more than a half-century on behalf of Indigenous people in Minnesota and around the world. Indian Country benefited from Clyde Bellecourt's activism".
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Categories: 1936 Births, 2022 Deaths, 20th-century Native American People, Native American Activists, Members Of The American Indian Movement, American Indigenous Rights Activists, Activists From Minneapolis, White Earth Nation People, Deaths From Cancer In Minnesota, Prisoners And Detainees Of Minnesota, Prisoners And Detainees Of The United States Federal Government, Native American People From Minnesota, American Founders
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