This segment originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
On this day in 1973, American Indian Movement protesters moved into Wounded Knee and refused to leave. Was it an occupation? A liberation?
Madonna Thunder Hawk was among the activists. She calls the 71-day event a "protection." Hear her story and her reflections on the importance of honest history.
Learn about the events happening to honor the 50th Anniversary of Wounded Knee.
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Lori Walsh:
You're listening to In The Moment on South Dakota Public Broadcasting. I'm Lori Walsh. Well, this week marks the 50th anniversary of Wounded Knee 1973. Some people call the 71 day standoff an occupation. Others call it a liberation. Madonna Thunder Hawk suggests we consider it as a protection. You'll hear much this week on our air and most likely via national media outlets as well about this story. One of the aspects of history I find most interesting is how women tell stories about their life experiences. So Madonna Thunder Hawk agreed to talk with me on the phone last week. I wanted to sort through the story focusing on a few key points here, and I did take one point of privilege at the end of this interview when I asked her what she thought should be on public radio and what should be on In The Moment in particular. That's at the end of our conversation, but we want to know what you think about that too. So send us an email: inthemoment@sdpb.org. Here's my conversation with Madonna Thunder Hawk. Madonna Thunder Hawk, thank you for taking time for us today. We appreciate that.
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Well, thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here.
Lori Walsh:
There are so many different stories 50 years later from Wounded Knee in 1973. What is one of the first things you want young people to understand broadly before we get into the specifics of what your life was like then? What's missing in the sort of current narratives that you see in the media, for example?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Well, that's a bigger picture than how I look at it. I look mostly locally and I look at my people and I think of how does this affect our young people? And we have the ability now in this modern day to record and write our own history and our modern day history because we have a living history. It didn't all happen in the past. It's still moving on because we are land-based and we as people, we have a special nation to nation relationship with the US Federal Government due to our ratified treaties that we have with the United States government. So to me, I look at it as an educational, 50 year anniversary is an educational opportunity.
Lori Walsh:
What was awakening for you during that time? What did you realize during those months, those weeks, that you didn't know as a young person? Yeah.
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Yeah. I was a young mother at the time, and the rest of the country was also on the move. We weren't isolated what was going on in our territory, our Lakota territory. It was nationwide. The rest of the country, the young people were on the move, the anti-war movement, anti-Vietnam War movement going on. The Black Panther Party, the Brown Beret party, the farm workers, the whole country was on the move. And we were part of that. The mindset of the country was different at that time. The United States government had a program called relocation. Get the Indian people off the [inaudible 00:03:33], send them to the big cities, and then they'll disappear. Well, it didn't happen like that. We all went out there and saw what was going on, and we came home and we realized that what was going on with us, with our people and colonization effects of the American Indian policies of the federal government, we could see then that we had our time of resistance and our time to fight for what we have left. And that's exactly what we did.
Lori Walsh:
What is the right word to use in your estimation? Occupation, liberation, something else?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Protection.
Lori Walsh:
Protection.
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Protection of our land base and our treaty rights.
Lori Walsh:
Was it connected to Alcatraz in the sense that is a federal government is sort of decommissioning Alcatraz and the American Indian movement says, well, for sovereignty, this is our land now. And then we have Wounded Knee. Were those two connected, philosophically?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Philosophically, but not name. I mean, the American Indian movement at the time was just a new organization. And there were many organizations of the Red Power movement of that era that sprang up around the country, and American Indian movement was one of many. So Alcatraz Island was a result of American Indian people and native people relocating to the Bay Area. And so it was an issue for the fact that like you said it, the federal government, supposedly federal land that's decommissioned or not used, it's supposed to revert back to the original people, the indigenous people. Of course, it never happened. So that was the issue of Alcatraz Island. But the American Indian movement was based in the Twin Cities at the time, and they weren't national. So the Red Power movement was a big movement. It wasn't just the American Indian movement.
Lori Walsh:
So you have your 10 year old son, or you have your son with you, your child. You said you were a young mother. Did you plan to stay as long as you did? Tell me, take me to this sort of caravan moment where you end up at Wounded Knee. Tell me that story.
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Well, first of all, I would never take any of my children into a battle zone. That's ridiculous. But anyway, we were invited. We were in Rapid City, we were gathered there. There was a core group of American Indian movement people that moved around the country. We were always asked to come to communities, American Indian communities on the reservation and off. So they had no venue at the time. They had no forum, no one took their troubles or our problems of what was going on. So that's the American Indian movement. We were mobile, we were moving around the country. And there were those of us in the Dakotas that we moved around in our area. So we were in that Rapid City. We had just gone to Custer, had a confrontation there because of the Wesley Bad Hart Bull results of that trial and what happened there.
And so we were located in Rapid City. We got a request, a delegation came up from the Pine Ridge Reservation, and they requested that we come to the reservation to meet with people in different communities. So that was the plan. So those of us in Rapid City, that where we just can take a group down, just a handful of people down to meet with them. And my son was 10 years old and he asked me, he said, "Where you going, mom?" So I told him. He said, "Can I come?" So I said, "Okay." Because I thought we were going just for the day.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. You're going for a conversation for the day. Why wouldn't you take your son with you? How did it become more than that?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Well, we met with the representatives of different communities in groups at a small community called Calico on a Pine Ridge reservation. And different ones, Elders and Headsmen and women of the traditional people at that time, they had the issues and we were meeting and talking about that. And then we also got word that there was a community, the Porcupine community in the north of Pine Ridge area of Village, Pine Ridge Village, you go past Wounded Knee. And then Porcupine Community requested that we come there for the evening because their community was gathering and they wanted us to come and meet with them. So that was the plan. So when we said, "All right, well, that's where we'll go then, when we finished our meeting in Calico." And there were different, all kinds of issues discussed at the Calico meeting of everything that was the corrupt, tribal government at the time, all the atrocities that were going on.
So we headed out and the caravan people local just got in their cars and they jumped on the caravan and we were heading north. And as we went through the Pine Ridge Village, many of us, we slowed down, of course, people had to gas up their car and stop and buy snacks or whatever. And then we passed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Building, and they had a huge fenced in yard where they kept road equipment and things like that. And we looked over there and we saw military vehicles. And at the time, I had no idea what a APC was, an armored personnel carrier, but I saw one. And basically they're small tanks and I said, "Wow, wonder what's going on?" And then I glanced up at the Bureau of Indian Affairs Building and there was a sandbag gun position on the roof.
So got real nervous and I said, "What is going on?" And then we headed out and said, "Well, we'll go on to Porcupine and meet with the people there, and then we'll go on back to Rapid, Rapid City." But we were kind of worried then because we had all these local people, families in cars that got on the caravan and were going with us to the next meeting in Porcupine. So that was our main concern at the time. Well, when we turned north and it started getting toward the evening, we got close to Wounded Knee. We were going down and Wounded Knee is surrounded by hills, so it's kind of like area, it's low.
So we were going down in the hill, the highway going down, driving down is when we heard gunfire, and then we knew someone was shooting at us. So runners came up the highway and running up to our, telling us, get out the cars, get in a ditch. There's gunfire. Somebody's attacking us. Well, later on, as we all got into Wounded Knee into the area there where the trading post was, we found out it was the feds. We didn't know exactly who, but we knew they were feds because they had military vehicles and they had... I forget, anyway, their militia had blue uniform, jumpsuit uniforms on, things like that. So we knew then we were under attack.
Lori Walsh:
I saw an interview with you where you were talking about an evening where tracer rounds were flying over your head and just, did you think you'd live through it? Was there a moment where you thought, "I might not live to talk about this 50 years later"?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Well, it built up over the days. And so in the first few days, the first week or so, there wasn't all this negotiating going on and different things happening. But we were in Wounded Knee and our leadership then was the Oglala Civil Rights Organization. And they were a group of women and mainly women that negotiated with the feds. And I just say feds, because, I mean, there was every federal agency you can imagine was probably there, involved.
So they met with them outside of Wounded Knee, and we were inside and we took our direction from them. But as the momentum built up, and eventually there was a lot of, at night there were firefights, the feds would drop flares that lit up at different intervals, some on the ground, some higher, some were way higher. So at night, the whole area was lit up with flares. And then the tracers would and they'd start, they'd pick, decide where, what bunkers and what areas they were going to shoot up, and that's what they would do. So yeah, the tracers were always used at night. And I was a medic and I had three bunkers that was my territory. So I would crawl out there every night when the firefighting and just stay out there in case I was needed.
Lori Walsh:
Tell me more about the role of women, especially, I'm thinking of this women warrior project today and some of the oral histories that I'm going through and listening to the role of women at that time. Can you explain that to me so that my contemporary ears will understand, was it a leadership role, was it a supportive role? Was it integrated? Can you help me step into that a little bit, if you would?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Well, first of all, we were a movement of families. So that just tells you right there, okay. We were a movement of families. So wherever we went and whatever we did, we had families, because we were a movement. We weren't an organization that was highly organized, and we were a movement of people. So when you have a movement, you don't decide. You don't stand at the door and say, are you a member who, no, we're a movement of people and was the people's movement, it was their issues. So if they decided to come and bring their grandparents and their children, that's their decision, because we're a movement of families, a movement of people.
So you move that community way of living and how you do things. When we were in Wounded Knee, we were in Wounded Knee Village. We were a community. So though that the way of community was brought with us. So that's how we operated. So there was never a say, "Well, the women can't do this, or the women can do that, or the women should do this or should do that." That absolutely never happened because it was community. So it was automatic. If women were on the bunkers, that was their choice. If women were running their communications, that was their choice. And for example, what needed to be done, we could we were under major military gunfire. We needed medics, and we needed a medical center. So we were talking about it. Who we? The women. So then we did it. Didn't have to ask anybody's permission. It was community. You just do what your community does and has always done.
Lori Walsh:
See, I actually have chills right now because that, a movement of families, I would've never come to that realization without you just telling me, because it's so counterintuitive to what my family is like. You know what I mean? It's just so different from what my lived experience would be. So thank you for that. That's just really kind of mind bending for me to think about it in that way. Yeah.
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Well, thank you for asking. That was a good question.
Lori Walsh:
What has changed because of that time? Is it all linear and it builds on each other? Is it something else?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it, it builds on each other and events that happen and stuff. But I look at it from a community level through the eyes of community, because that's what I've done every since then. Is because American Indian movement, that taught me that is for change starts in community. You go home, change within. So that's what I've done all the rest of those years. I've worked in community. Community issues and building strong family, extended families and strong communities. That's how you... Anyway. Of course, it's culture too. It has a lot to do with tradition and how we did things, anyway. In real life and in our world, our society, we're ancestor strong. We have that strength so that you're never alone. You're never standing alone.
But anyway, but the main thing I see is, here's a good example. Back in those days, in sixties and seventies, the tribal councils were the first ones that went up against us of any kind of change. And they were totally under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal government, in line with whatever the Fed said, they, boy, they did it, we were, oh no good. We were just making it bad for them. We were rocking the boat. That type of thing.
But today, the tribal councils of today, most of them weren't even alive then. A lot of them were, but a lot of them weren't. But today, words like treaty rights, sovereignty, tribal programs, those are all radical AIM talk 50 years ago. Most was afraid to even mention that because who knows what the feds will do to you? Who knows what the BIA can do to you. But that's the big difference that I see. So we can partner with, for example, the grandmother's group I work with on my reservation, Shine River Reservation. We partner with our tribal council. That's the big difference for me as a community worker my entire adult life.
Lori Walsh:
So I'm hoping you can help me sort something else out. We're going through some interviews with Jim Abourezk, and he talks about the time that he and George McGovern went to Wounded Knee and they're in the car. And at one point he says, "I realized it was all for show." And I can't decide whether he means these people aren't armed to the teeth like we were told. Or if he means this is performative. And I'm listening to that excerpt and I'm thinking, what was that moment like? And what does he mean? It was for show? Does he mean, what?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
My memory for details, it's not very good. But I remember the event, I remember when it happened, but we also have to, now that I think about it, at that time, the feds, they opened up the roadblocks. So I think that's what Senator Abourezk was talking about when he said it's all for show. They wanted to, because it went international. You have to remember back in those days, there was no, it was all male dominated press.
And all they wanted to show was guns that men and militant Indians and that type of thing. They didn't want any other, what do you call it? Perception of it, what was going on. We were the bad guy. The military Indian. So on the national level, we had Senator Abourezk and McGovern, he was kind of more in the middle, moderate. But the politics was changing at the time because like I said, the rest of the country was also on the move. So Senator Abourezk and other politicians of that era, they were pressuring the federal government saying, "Wait a minute, we need to, well, what's going on out there?" So he was referring to the show that the feds were putting on. It was like, "Oh, we know. We want to have negotiations. We want to do this. We're here to try to..." What do you call it when you cool things down?
Lori Walsh:
Sure. Yeah.
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
They were trying... Did that impression. And so they hid all their tanks, they hid all their big guns, and it was all set up. And we knew that because we had meetings every evening in the training posts, and we knew all the time, the whole community of Wounded Knee, we knew what was going on at all times. We knew the strategy. We knew who was negotiating, those types of things. We were informed at all times. So we knew what was going on. And he was right. It was. It was for show. But they got in because the main thing they wanted to do, I believe, Senator Abourezk and McGovern was for the politics of Congress at the time. The pressure for the feds to pull out.
Lori Walsh:
I see. Are there things you think we should be doing? We should be airing that we're not doing or airing. You have thoughts on what should be on public radio that's not there?
Madonna Thunder Hawk:
Well, okay. I mean, everything. Everything needs to be talked about because of course. But again, we're talking maybe, I'm always thinking South Dakota. The rest of the country and what's going on with the history, teaching history in the schools and things, and what the governor of South Dakota is doing to try to shut down the truth. Let's pick and choose what history we're going to talk about. I think that's the main thing that people ought to be talking about right now. Because at one time, America was all about education and knowledge and being the world leader in that era. And it's no longer that way. It's no longer. So the dumbing down of America, I think that's an issue that all non, especially non-natives ought to be talking about. Look who's reigning in society here? And then the great American society is putting up with that, especially in South Dakota. Or is everybody think like a Republican? Is everybody a Republican crack? Is there any difference?
