The last of the five-part American Experience series on Native Americans, We Shall Remain, is entitled “Wounded Knee” and deals with the 1973 occupation of that portion of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where 83 years earlier the last notable armed struggle between Native Americans and the U. S. Army occurred. The 1890 event was yet another in a string of overreactions by federal soldiers and Indian police to the difficult process of committing the Plains Indians tribes to reservations. At Wounded Knee, followers of Bigfoot and the leader himself were trapped in a firefight that claimed the lives of some 300 innocents. The action on the frozen South Dakota landscape was for all intents and purposes what it has been described as, a massacre.
This fact was not lost on any of the parties in the 1973 action, which is detailed in what is essentially traditional historical documentary form in We Shall Remain. During the height of Indian activism in the 1960s and ’70s, which itself was an extension of the overall wave of social activism of those turbulent decades, Lakota people on the reservation called on the most visible Native American organization of the time, AIM, to help with a tribal leader who was running the reservation like Tammany Hall. AIM, the American Indian Movement, was one of those organizations deemed dangerous by the U. S. government at a time when organizational surveillance was virtually a full-time mission of the FBI. And though it addressed a multitude of injustices borne by Native Americans at the time, AIM’s penchant for armed confrontation and violence made it controversial, even among Indians. It was therefore with no small amount of concern that the traditional tribal leaders called on AIM to initiate action to remove the elected reservation leader, Dick Wilson, when all other means failed.
One of the great strengths of this episode of We Shall Remain, and what sets it apart from the others, is the opportunity to get contemporary interviews with the participants of the historical event. Former members of AIM, retired government agents, an ex-U.S. Senator and residents of the reservation appear on camera for the program, as well as in film and photographic coverage of those 71 tense days. The interviews reveal just how significant the occupation was in the lives of those who lived it, and emotional scars occasionally seep into the modern perspectives of the interviewees. The documentary chronicles the significant events of the preplanned occupation, and a group of thoughtful scholars, primarily Native American, analyze the impact.
Technically, the program is well designed. However, the filmmakers lack balance and completeness in some aspects of history beyond the Wounded Knee occupation itself. The explanation of 20th century policy and treatment of Native Americans is grossly oversimplified. Also, the audience is led to believe that all Indians who were sent to government boarding schools were permanently scarred. There are scholarly examinations that detail the pros and cons of the experience. The existence of Indian activism beyond the exploits of AIM is also largely ignored, especially the 1969-71 occupation of Alcatraz by the self-proclaimed “Indians of All Tribes” that continued longer and with less violence than that of Wounded Knee.
Still, the overall impression of this program as the climax of a very fine series is a positive one. It leaves the audience with the correct impression that Native Americans would leave Wounded Knee with more awareness and strength in their histories and cultures and in their lives in the modern world. While there is much still to be done, this is what has been happening in the three -plus decades since the occupation. In a Historynet.com interview, We Shall Remain director Ric Burns said the magnitude of work in this series could never be duplicated in bringing the story of Native Americans to the television public. Whether or not that is true, the mission of We Shall Remain is not over. The ReelNative Short Film Project and other outreach programs that are an integral part of We Shall Remain assure that it is a project that will keep on giving after its initial TV run ends.
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fox 28 news said:
Intelligent points- Will come back soon.
July 1st, 2009 at 9:37 pm