AIM Occupation of Mount Rushmore
The American Indian Movement (AIM), a spiritual grass roots Native American organization, became formally established over 30 years ago with the purpose of creating an organization whose primary purpose was to work toward the fulfillment of all treaties between Native Americans and the United States. (aimmovement.org) Billing itself as primarily a spiritual organization dedicated to the Native American spirituality, AIM was from the start a group that crossed traditional tribal boundaries to include all native peoples within the Western Hemisphere in its mind and heart. At times considered too radical, AIM was responsible for several high profile protests and occupations, and has even been considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in its past.
On June 6, 1971, AIM organized an occupation of Mount Rushmore itself. Along with Lakota holy man John Fire Lame Deer, twenty young AIM activists, children and tribal elders climbed to the top of Mount Rushmore and camped out on top of the monument. Their demand was simple; that the United States honor the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. The lands that had been taken in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty consist of a large portion of South Dakota, North Dakota, and portions of Nebraska and Montana, a sizeable request.
Symbolically, Lame Deer planted a prayer staff at the top in order to "make the mountain a sacred place again." He also claimed that he was putting a blanket or shroud over the mountain mystically, so that the faces of the sculptures would remain dirty until the Black Hills treaties were made good upon. (Glass, 279) The protest was non-violent and the protesters were removed by National Park Service staff and charged with trespassing.(Lazarus, 294)