Skip to content
THE AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT & WOUNDED KNEE (1973–1977)
The American Indian Movement's 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, and the 'reign of terror' that followed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, drew a massive federal response. After a 1975 firefight in which two FBI agents and AIM member Joe Stuntz were killed, Leonard Peltier was convicted in 1977 on evidence later shown to have been coerced and fabricated; he became the longest-serving Indigenous political prisoner in U.S. history before his release to home confinement in February 2025.