On Thanksgiving 1970, AIM members seized a replica of the Mayflower in Boston Harbor, declaring a national day of mourning. Other early AIM actions mirrored the Alcatraz occupation. Banks and other AIM members were a part of the coalition occupied Alcatraz Island in 1969, asserting Indigenous authority over the island in an ironic imitation of Europeans’ takeover of the continent. Occupations and EducationĪIM’s early protests against police brutality earned the new organization notoriety, and its membership grew rapidly. Its leaders took inspiration from the civil rights movement and the policies of nonviolent confrontation that many of its leaders espoused, although as the years went on AIM members would occasionally take up arms. AIM also supported the creation of the Indian Health Board of Minneapolis to provide healthcare to the Native community. One of AIM’s first actions was to create the AIM Patrol, which monitored how police and the courts treated Native Americans.

AIM’s original goal was to curb racial profiling in Minneapolis and give a voice to Native Americans living in the city. A significant number of people moved from reservations to the cities, where they encountered a lack of educational opportunities and racial profiling at the hands of the police.ĭennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt, two Ojibwa men who had met in prison, founded AIM in 1968 in Minneapolis, along with Bellecourt’s brother Vernon and Banks’ friend George Mitchell. “ Termination policy” became federal law in 1953, as Congress formally ended its recognition of more than 100 tribes, encouraging Indians to leave reservations for the cities of the West and Midwest. In the first half of the 20 th century, the federal government imposed a higher degree of control over Indian lands, with the intention of breaking up tribes and assimilating their members into American cities.

The 'Termination Policy' and AIM's Origins

Aim definition 1960s