FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 29, 2004
CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119

NATIVE AMERICAN LEADER TO SPEAK AT DRAKE FEB. 11

Dennis Banks, a Native American leader, teacher, lecturer, activist and author, will speak about current issues in Native American communities when he visits Drake University on Wednesday, Feb. 11. His speech, which is free and open to the public, will start at 7:30 p.m. in Parents Hall in Olmsted Center, 29th Street and University Avenue.

Banks is co-founder of the American Indian Movement, which organized and carried out actions such as the occupations of Alcatraz and Wounded Knee during the 1960s and 1970s. In his speech he will explore the role of AIM from its beginning to today.

Banks established AIM to protect the traditional ways of Native Americans and to engage in legal cases protecting their treaty rights. Banks, leader of Wounded Knee forces, organized a protest in Custer, S.D., against a judicial process that found a Caucasian man not guilty of murdering a Native American.

Banks and 300 others were arrested and faced trial as a result of their involvement in Custer, S.D., and Wounded Knee. Banks went underground and later received amnesty in California.

Banks and AIM have been successful in raising awareness of Native American issues through its involvement in the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Alcatraz Island and others.

For more information about Banks’ speech, call Vibs Petersen at (515) 271-1883.