AIM, ICE and the history of Indigenous activism in Minneapolis

I'm Cedar Buttons. This is APTN News in focus. On this episode, Indigenous activism in Minneapolis, from past to present. "That's me right there. There's a lot of some means up here at Eventin'." In July 1968, more than 200 Native Americans gathered in Minneapolis, Minnesota to form the American Indian movement. They wanted to advance their rights and fight systemic injustice. My name is Nikon Weigh, we're done. I'm the Thunder before the storm. I'm founder and national director today of the American Indian movement. I'm from the White House on the Shunabi Nation in northern Minnesota. 1968, I was 32 years old. I was here in Minneapolis and we were conversing in people that we knew of. There was no Indian Center, there was no program where you could meet them. So we went knock on the door and then we tell them who we were. We're trying to start this new organization where we needed their help. So we listened to issues dealing with housing, health, welfare, police brutality. We promised that people were going to do something about that, but we need your help. Only on July 28, 1968, no place to meet. We met an elder who lived here upstairs the whole Armenian. Three elders and women were ready to grab me by the shirt and pull me over to the side and said, "We have a name." I said, "What is it?" She said, "Amen." I said, "What does that mean?" She said, "Well, you're aiming to do something about housing. You're aiming to do something about our lost children. You're aiming to do something about police brutality and the highest school drop-off rate." And that's why we wanted to use the name of AIM. I said, "What does it mean?" She said, "American Indian movement." Today AIM members are back on the streets of Minneapolis, fighting a new battle. They're patrolling the area and protecting community from the US, immigration and customs enforcement, better known around the world as ICE. For many Native Americans, the fear of being racially profiled or unlawfully detained by ICE is palpable. In January, four Ogla-Glaaf Sioux members and one descendant of the Red Lake Nation were detained by ICE. Officers also arrested Sophie Watzow, a Dakota woman, after they accused her of obstructing an ongoing investigation. The man yelling in the video is trying to help his friend, a Native American woman being arrested by immigrations and customs enforcement agents, better known as ICE. Last Wednesday, Sophie Watzow was arrested and detained by ICE in Minnesota. "My cousin had been taken by ICE. It's absurd that indigenous people are being detained by ICE, which there's not one person who's more citizen than an indigenous person on Turtle Island." But tribal nations are stepping up, with some issuing free or low-cost IDs to protect citizens. In back in Minneapolis, grassroots groups like the indigenous protector movement, alongside AIM, are on the ground protecting community members. But how does Minneapolis's storied history of indigenous activism connected to today's Native-led response to ICE? To get into that question, I'm joined by Heather Regal, a public historian, activist, and citizen of the United Nation of Wisconsin. Heather, thanks so much for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So to start this interview, let's go back in time to the late '60s. What was happening in Minneapolis leading up to the founding of the American Indian movement in 1968? Oh gosh, so there was so much going on. It's not just saying whether it's in the United States or in Minneapolis, it all leads up to 1968 when the American Indian movement is founded. But prior to that, you've got Indian removal that happened in 1956. And that was a policy that came out of the termination policy era in the United States. It's really relocation that brings a lot of indigenous folks off the reservations, moving to urban centers with promises of being able to find employment or a better life, so to speak. And that's not necessarily what happens. What happens is you end up living in areas where there's not a lot of jobs. You end up living in areas that are damaged by redlining. Minions that are targeted for urban renewal, segregated again, we're talking about the '50s in the '60s and so the United States, even though we've had court cases that have said segregation is illegal, it's still happening in a lot of parts of the United States, including our large urban centers. And so Minneapolis just happened to be one of those what we call relocation cities. So a lot of indigenous folks went to New York, LA, Denver, and Minneapolis. And so there's a lot going on. You're living in segregated neighborhoods. Your children are having to go to segregated schools. And there are not a lot of jobs to be had. So the poverty level is quite high. You're facing discrimination, just like other black and brown communities living in urban centers. And so it's very much kind of that way across the entire country, not just in Minneapolis. And so with the founding of AIM, what was the sort of overarching vision that was driving it? Yeah, so AIM was founded, the American Indian Movement was founded in 1968, two of the founders are Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellacort. And the purpose behind AIM was to really give focus and bring awareness to what was happening with the urban Indian, right? And I also, I feel like I should also preface, you know, when we're talking about federal law and federal policy, the word Indian is still very much used. And so when I, you know, if I'm talking about federal policy relating to indigenous peoples, you know, the word Indian is used a lot still. That's just how the law is written. And so AIM was very much focused on that plight of the urban Indian and what was happening. And their main goal was really to focus on police brutality, right? That was being faced within our indigenous communities. And so they would patrol streets. They would, you know, if somebody was being pulled over, they would stop, you know, make sure that your rights are being, you know, not being infringed upon and that, you know, the letter of the law was being followed. There was also a really big push on tribal sovereignty, treaty rights. And what I really think eventually becomes the land back movement and it's bringing awareness to all of these issues within Indian country and making sure that people know what's going on. But it was really that foundational, I think, structure of AIM was really about making sure that our rights as indigenous folks were being protected and followed. Mm-hmm. And so looking back, you know, the first couple decades of AIM, what are some of the key protests and acts of civil disobedience that really stand out to you? Yeah, yeah. I love to talk about, you know, our acts of resistance throughout history because one could argue from the moment of colonization, you know, we were resisting. But when we really think to AIM and the movements that they were really good at, what they were really good to do with some of these larger movements was to bring media attention to it and you bring media attention to these issues, to the movements itself, you bring attention to the issues. And so one of the main major acts of protest was the occupation of Alcatraz, of Alcatraz Island, home of a former prison in the United States where they sent the worst of the worst criminals. But by the time early 1960s, that prison was closed down and the land was just kind of sitting there, not really doing anything. And so there was a mass protest that lasted from 1969 until 1971. So we're talking about a number of years. It wasn't just, you know, a couple days or a week or even a couple months. It was, it was well over a year into this. And so what they did is they really brought awareness during that particular protest to the issues that were happening in Indian country, talking about the treaties that had never been followed up on by the United States government. You know, indigenous folks always, you know, held up their end of a treaty. And usually our end of a treaty was seeding land in the United States, though has never 100, 300 treaties later, never fully upheld their end of the bargain. And so aim was really bringing awareness to that. And you know, they wanted to make sure that people knew what was happening in Indian country. Another tree protest that I like to talk about is the trail of broken treaties where in its name really does talk about treaties in the United States and Indian nations, a sovereign nations treaties. I don't think people understand our legal documents and their legal documents and agreements that can only be made between sovereign entities. And so if you're making a treaty with a tribal nation, you're in fact calling them sovereign. You're letting us know about our sovereignty and you know, treating us as a separate nation. But that's not really how our system of government is set up when you think about it in terms of how tribal nations are treated under the federal government. But a treaty says that we are sovereign. And so the trail of broken treaties, which happened in 1972, was a cross country caravan where people were joining along the way. And you know, ends in Washington, DC and it's really saying, hey, you know, you guys are still not living up to your obligations. You're not living up to these treaties that you've made with us. It ends with the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. There is some interaction with the White House and the Nixon administration. You know, the Nixon administration really ends by saying that they're going to include indigenous people in future negotiations and future treaty negotiations. But treaty stopped being made with tribal nations in the late 1800s. So I'm not really sure, you know, what they kind of meant by that. But it did bring awareness that treaties need to be enforced. I think one that a lot of people are familiar with is the occupation of wounded knee in 1973, which kind of calls back to the massacre of wounded knee, which happens in 1890. Moonded knees located on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. And there was a lot that was happening around that time. And there was more calls for sovereignty, more calls for what I, what I and others maybe now call the current land back movement. And saying, Hey, we're sovereign entities. We have the right to self determination and self governance. We were here long before Europeans and other settlers came over. This land is ours. And so I think what aim was really great at doing is using these mass large scale protests to bring awareness to issues within Indian country that I don't think people sitting in their living rooms every night knew about. And so that was one of the things that they were absolutely brilliant at being able to do. Fast forwarding to the present. How is aim and other indigenous led community organizations and patrols mobilizing on the ground against ice? Yeah, we see a lot of things that are happening right now in 2026 that I think harken back to the past. And as a historian, I often say history does not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. And so I think what we're seeing right now, we're seeing, you know, people and their rights being infringed upon. We're seeing people being kidnapped from their homes. We're seeing families being torn apart. This has happened time and time again throughout history, whether it was in the indigenous community, whether it's been in the black community, whether it's been in, you know, other communities, you know, you can harken back to even the Japanese internment camps that the United States had in the wake of World War II. And really see how the United States reacts to people. And I think what we're seeing right now within our communities, particularly I'm thinking about Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota where you've got members of activist communities including the American Indian movement and other indigenous community groups coming out and watching over their community again, just like they did in 1968, 1969, 1970. You know, you've got people coming out and making sure that community members are, you know, have documentation that they needed. You see tribal nations reaching out to their tribal citizens and making available tribal IDs and making time for people to be able to come in and get proper tribal ID if they don't have one. You've got people who are being encouraged to carry documentation for themselves because we see federally enrolled tribal people being detained by organizations like ICE. And that's absolutely insane. You know, again, we're the first peoples that were living on this land well before colonization and we're also ones that have gotten mixed up in these detention centers, even, you know, using fort smelling in Minneapolis, which was the site of a concentration camp camp during the Dakota uprising in 1862 where Dakota people were held before they were pushed out of Minnesota. Simply for fighting to make sure that their treaty rights were being upheld, you know, the people, they were starving. The United States wasn't doing what it needed to be doing in order to honor the treaty made with the Dakota. And so an uprising broke out in order for them to feed their families. And so I think what we see now really harkens back to every single act of indigenous resistance that we see throughout history and its protection of our community and of our people. So, you know, as you mentioned, there are now numerous instances of Native Americans being unlawfully detained by ICE. I'm wondering, you know, at a community level, you know, how is this impacting people in their sense of safety? You know, I have friends who live in Minneapolis, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and raised out to them and, you know, really wanting to talk with them and understand what they're feeling right now. But even speaking from my own experience, you know, I live in the Midwest. I live in the Detroit area. And I, you know, it's a border town. I can, you know, see, we can see Canada right across the Detroit River. And it's, you know, makes me nervous. And I never thought I would live in a time where just because I'm an Indigenous person who does look indigenous, you know, I do brown skin would make me a target. And it's, it's scary. It's, it's very scary. I have, you know, wondered if I needed to start even carrying my birth certificate on me. You know, I have a tribal idea and I do carry that. That's just part of my identification. But it's a scary time to live in. And as a historian, if I even just take, you know, just put my historian hat on, really looking at what I'm seeing now and going, gosh, it seems so familiar. Why does this seem familiar? It's because it's happened before. It's happened before in our country. People always tend to, you know, want to look outside of the United States. For example, you know, harkening back to the 1930s and 40s and even before that. We don't have to look out of the outside of the United States for human rights violations. We have many of our own that have happened from the inception of this country. And for this to be happening in 2026, the year where the United States commemorates the founding, you know, 250 years of this great American experiment that we talk about. And people's rights as citizens and stewards of this land are being challenged. US citizens are being killed at the hands of police force. We don't have to look farther than our own backyards to see that this has happened before. And so, you know, I wanted to go back to kind of an earlier point that you were talking about, you know, talking about kind of the solidarity. And I'm wondering, you know, what is the role of unity and solidarity between different communities in the history of the American Indian movement, but also, you know, as it's continuing today? Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. And thank you for pointing that back out. You know, I think black and brown communities have our histories have been intertwined since the beginning, right? I've often said, you know, that the United States is a country that has built on stolen, that was, you know, built on stolen land on the backs of the enslaved. And so our histories have been intertwined from the very, very start. And I think we can see instances throughout history where communities, black and brown communities have come together to lean on each other and support each other, you know, through the civil war era where there were a number of tribal nations that were instrumental in the underground railroad helping freedom seekers get north. We see that happening. We see this happening throughout the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 60s. We can see a lot of similarities between the American Indian movement and the Black Panther movement, both rooted in community and bringing voices of the unheard to the forefront. I think in most recent history, there's been a number of examples, but when I think back to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, you see people from all backgrounds, Indigenous, not Indigenous, Black, white, showing up and supporting one another. You've seen a number of Indigenous groups, including the American Indian movement and other activist Indigenous groups that show up to Black Lives Matter protests because our causes are the same. It's the same. It's to be treated as people, to be treated as human. And so I think when we think about community in my own experience, when I'm thinking of community, I'm not just thinking of the Indigenous community that I'm part of, but I'm thinking about the broader community that I'm a part of. And I think that's something that is sometimes forgotten, that it's, you know, we're not just looking out for our own Indigenous community members, but we're looking out for people around us who make up our community. Community is what you make of it. And it's just like family, families who you include. They don't have to be blood-related. And I think that is so important in this day and age. And that honestly, and this time is the one thing that gives me hope that I see a little glimmer of hope in is the fact that communities come together and they look out for each other when they're being threatened. And you don't even have to be a member of that community. You don't have to be Indigenous. As long as you're a voice and an ally and you're willing to stand there with us, that's such a beautiful thing. Heather, that's all the time that we have, but thank you so much for this conversation and joining us today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I am so grateful to be included in the conversation. This episode was produced by Mark Blackburn and edited by Jesse Andrusco. Charmaine Straker is the executive producer of APTN News and Focus. We want to know if you're enjoying the show. Please leave a rating and review on your favorite player or email suggestions to infocusataptn.ca. Also, give us a follow. It helps other people find the show. I'm Sierra Betenz. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week. Hi, I'm Dennis Ward, one of the hosts of APTN National News. We've expanded our truth and politics panel into a weekly podcast. Each episode, panelists, Jennifer Leewitz and Negan St. Clare join us to examine key issues affecting Indigenous peoples across Canada. Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast player.