Clyde Bellecourt & Winona LaDuke on Line 3 Update and the Start of AIM. Honor the Earth sends condolences to the Bellecourt family as we all mourn his passing on January 11, 20200. Video of Clyde Bellecourt and Winona LaDuke, both from the White Earth Reservation, visit together in Minneapolis, MN on May 17, 2021 back when Enbridge Line 3 was under construction in unceeded 1855 Treaty Territory. Video filmed and edited by Keri Pickett for Honor the Earth. From Wiki: Clyde Bellecourt, May 8, 1936 – January 11, 2022) was a Native American civil rights organizer. His Ojibwe 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.
Posted by Honor the Earth on Wednesday, January 19, 2022

A wake service was held Friday evening at the White Earth Indian Reservation, and Saturday morning a traditional Ojibwe funeral service was held, followed by the burial. A cruel irony of his passing is that George Floyd was barbarically murdered by Minneapolis police 53 years after Clyde founded AIM to stop police brutality against Indigenous people in the very same city. This racist murder took place just a few block from Clyde’s home. Clyde’s voice and legacy shall continue to resonate against racism and the oppression of humanity throughout the world.A strong leader in the civil rights movement & elder for Indigenous people has walked on to join the ancestors. ✨
— IllumiNative (@_IllumiNatives) January 12, 2022
Clyde Bellecourt (White Earth Nation) Neegon-we-waywedon (The Thunder Before The Storm) co-founded #AIM which held major national protests in the 60s and 70s. pic.twitter.com/AXJLeEHzSq
Albert Bender is a Cherokee activist, historian, political columnist, and freelance reporter for Native and Non-Native publications. He is currently writing a legal treatise on Native American sovereignty and working on a book on the war crimes committed by the U.S. against the Maya people in the Guatemalan civil war He is a consulting attorney on Indigenous sovereignty, land restoration, and Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) issues and a former staff attorney with Legal Services of Eastern Oklahoma (LSEO) in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
This article originally appeared on People's World. It is published under a Creative Commons license.
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