Biography
Gladys Bissonette was an Oglala Lakota elder and a leader of the traditionalist faction on the Pine Ridge Reservation that opposed tribal chairman Dick Wilson. A principal organizer of the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation, she helped convene the meeting that launched it, ran its health clinic during the 71-day siege, and was a negotiator with the U.S. government. Afterward she was prosecuted in U.S. federal court for her role in the occupation. She endured the killing of her nephew Pedro Bissonette in October 1973.
