As a young man, Russell Means picked up the gun and became a militant symbol of the American Indian Movement, but today, at age 63, he preaches that the ballot is more powerful than the bullet.
Nearly 30 years have passed since Means and 350 other heavily armed American Indians made a 71-day stand at Wounded Knee, occupying the site where as many as 300 Indian men, women and children were killed by the 7th Cavalry in 1890. Gun battles erupted during the takeover, staged to protest broken treaties and lost land. Two Indians were killed and a federal marshal seriously wounded.
Means followed a path of confrontation, including courthouse sit-ins, and in 1978 served a year in jail for his role in a riot at the Sioux Falls courthouse.
Time has not dulled his sharp tongue or his anger. Ask him about President Bush, and he’ll say, “The guy has an IQ of 94.”
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle? “He’s the worst part of [former President Bill] Clinton; he’ll do anything.”
Means’ militancy has always been laced with irreverence. But now he is a political pragmatist, not the firebrand of yesterday.
Tribal election Tuesday
He has become a Constitution-thumping libertarian who is campaigning to become the Oglala Sioux tribal president in an election Tuesday. If elected, Means says, he will make sweeping changes in tribal government and challenge the legal underpinnings of federal Indian policy. He’ll be attempting to seize by ballot the tribal government he has so long criticized from the outside.
American Indian voters were the decisive factor in the recent U.S. Senate race in South Dakota, where the Democrats mounted a registration drive on the reservations.
Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson was losing to Republican John Thune by 700 votes, but he eked out a 528-vote victory after receiving a heavy vote from the Pine Ridge Reservation.
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Means says Johnson’s victory proves that Indians have the “swing power vote” in South Dakota, and they shouldn’t let the Democrats take them for granted. In the next election, he will urge Indians to vote Republican, he says. He gives two reasons: to dump Daschle and to gain respect in political circles.
“If we vote with the Republicans, we’ll make a statement to South Dakota and the national Republican and Democratic Parties that we are a force to be reckoned with, so when we go to Washington, the doors of power will be open just a bit wider than they are now,” he said.
American Indians on reservations are the only U.S. citizens governed by unique federal laws that control just about every facet of their lives. Means says Indian law is antiquated, and he blames it for the plight of the Oglala Sioux and other Indians on reservations.
`Locked in enforced poverty’
At Pine Ridge, as many as 8 out of 10 residents are unemployed, and many people live in substandard housing. The infant mortality rate and the incidence of diabetes, alcoholism and suicide are comparable to the rates in Third World nations.
“The web of federal regulations that have been woven so tightly around people on reservations keeps them locked in enforced poverty,” Means said.
Under federal law, Indians on reservations have a special relationship with the U.S. government. Essentially, they are wards of the federal government and subject to the plenary powers of Congress, but the tribes also have sovereign governments.
Means points out that the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 required the tribes to set up governments and constitutions. Under the system, tribal councils wield enormous power because tribal constitutions lack the safeguards to protect the rights of members.
“We are ruled by tribal committee, and it’s controlled by a federal agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs.” he says.
If elected tribal chairman, Means said, he will push to scrap the tribal constitution and adopt a new one similar to the U.S. Constitution. Indians have been U.S. citizens since 1924, but Indian law is rooted in legal decisions made before they gained citizenship, he said.
Means has critics
Means has a strong following at Pine Ridge, but not everyone is enthusiastic about his bid. For some, Means–with his long braids, silver jewelry, black leather jacket, designer jeans and stylish cowboy boots–is too urbane for “the rez.”
Tom Poor Bear, a longtime activist, questions the sincerity of Means’ presidential bid.
Poor Bear said Means capitalized on the exposure from his early days in the movement to gain a foothold in the entertainment world. Means has appeared in 10 movies, made numerous television appearances and formed a production company.
“He’s appeared in front of cameras so much they’ve robbed him of his soul,” Poor Bear says.