Native Organizations

Formed in August of 1968, the American Indian Movement Patrol (AIM Patrol) was a citizens’ patrol created in response to police brutality against American Indian people in Minneapolis.

Patrollers observed officers’ interactions with American Indians and offered mediators that community members could call on for help. As of 2016, a similar but separate group operates under the same name.

The best known of all Indian Power groups is the American Indian Movement, commonly known by it’s initials. AIM was formed in 1968 by two Chippewas, Dennis Banks and George Mitchell, to combat poverty and unemployment and protest police brutality.

AIM burst onto the international scene with its seizure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C., in 1972 and the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

In the decades since AIM’s founding, the group has led protests advocating Indigenous American interests, inspired cultural renewal, monitored police activities and coordinated employment programs in cities and in rural reservation communities across the United States.

AIM has often supported other indigenous interests outside the United States, as well.

Here is a summary of their most publicized moments and some of the key members of this activist organization.