Aired on Tues., Feb. 28, 2023

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Out-FM aired "Wounded Knee Uprising, 50 Years Later," a special edition. Out-FM producer Bob Lederer and intern and gay Choctaw activist Elijah Weaver interviewed American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Lenny Foster and white bisexual anti-imperialist and physician Dr. Barbara Zeller, both of whom were at the site of the occupation in South Dakota in 1973.

The Wounded Knee Uprising was the 71-day occupation of traditional Lakota land by hundreds of Indigenous activists and their supporters in the land that white settlers stole, massacred Lakota by the hundreds in the 1800s, and renamed South Dakota. Some of you may wonder why this was on Out-FM, a show about progressive queer issues. We in the Out-FM collective believe that issues of queer freedom and survival are intimately linked to the freedom and survival struggles of all oppressed peoples, particularly people of color. And for that reason, queers of all nationalities have always been deeply involved in modern liberation movements either directly as members of those groups or as people of other nationalities building solidarity with those movements. We saw this especially vividly in In 2016, during the months-long occupation of Standing Rock by water protectors, we again saw this unity of action between members of many Native nations and many non-Native people. And this time, there was also a special camp by and for Two Spirit people -- that the indigenous-created term for those who view themselves as diverging from a single-identity gender. As federal and state repression mounted, some of the Two Spirit activists found themselves among those prosecuted for their steadfastness in defending the water against the assault by the company building the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

In 2022, Bob Lederer worked with one of our producers in training, gay Choctaw college student Elijah Weaver, to bring Out-FM listeners a look-back at the solidarity of white bisexual actor Marlon Brando, who in 1973, just weeks after the Wounded Knee occupation began, rejected his Academy Award and asked his acting colleague and young Indigenous activist Sacheen Littlefeather to explain to the world why he was taking this unprecedented step to protest Hollywood’s long history of racist depictions of Native Americans. Brando’s and Littlefeather’s courage, which caused her to be frozen out of film industry work for decades, was an important declaration during the first internationally broadcast awards ceremony, which helped pierce the veil of media silence about the Native side of the story at Wounded Knee – and in the weeks afterward, corporate media coverage reflected more of those voices.

Sacheen Little Feather in Marlon Brando's place at 1973 Academy Awards.

In this special on Wounded Knee, Bob again teamed up with Elijah Weaver to record these interviews. One of our two guests was white bisexual anti-imperialist activist and physician Barbara Zeller, and the other was Lanny Foster, a member of the American Indian Movement – both of whom risked their lives in the struggle at Wounded Knee. Elijah and Bob were moved by this hero and shero in the fight for a world of freedom.

February 27, 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the 71-day Wounded Knee uprising by more than 200 Lakota activists led by the American Indian Movement or AIM, who set up camp in the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Reservation, site of a U.S. Army massacre of 300 Lakota in 1890.

The Lakota people – incorrectly labeled by the U.S. government as “Sioux” – were demanding that the federal government suspend the colonial tribal government and hold a referendum on a new form of democratic government. They also demanded compliance with 19th century treaties granting them land and water rights—then under attack as lucrative uranium had been discovered in the area. The Lakota camp quickly came under a massive military siege from the U.S. Army, federal marshals, and the FBI.

On May 8, 1973, after 71 days of occupation, federal officials agreed to investigate the AIM leaders’ charges about violations of Native treaty rights and 150 civil rights violations by the Guardians of the Oglala Nation, or GOONs, the AIM and Oglala leaders ended the occupation. Two national AIM leaders were arrested and charged with murder, but charges were later dismissed due to government misconduct. A total of 1500 other supporters nationwide were arrested on lesser charges. Over time, all the promises of investigations and actions to reverse violation of Indigenous rights came to nothing. In the 3 years that followed, GOON squads, with FBI support, murdered 69 AIM supporters and wounded 300.

Guests:
Lenny Foster is a longtime distinguished Indigenous and prisoner rights activist. A member of the Dineh nation, commonly called Navajo, he has been with the American Indian Movement or AIM since 1970, is a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council, and participated in many actions for Indigenous sovereignty, including at Wounded Knee. And Lenny Foster was one of the frontline warriors at Wounded Knee who participated in 11 gun battles with the government. For years afterward, he was director of the Navajo Nation Corrections Project and was a spiritual adviser for over 2,000 Indigenous incarcerated people in 96 prisons, including AIM leader and longtime political prisoner Leonard Peltier, unjustly convicted of killing an FBI agent. He has testified before the United Nations and the U.S. Congress. He joins us from Saint Michael, Arizona.

Barbara Zeller is a longtime physician and acupuncturist who has focused on serving disenfranchised communities and is a white bisexual woman. Barbara has a long track record of anti-imperialist solidarity with liberation movements and medical care and testimony for U.S. political prisoners. In 1973, shortly after she and her husband Alan Berkman obtained their medical licenses, Barbara and Alan traveled to Wounded Knee and took great risks to provide medical aid to people of that blockaded town. She joins us from New York City.

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Out-FM's Earlier Coverage of Marlon Brando's and Sacheen Littlefeather's Defiance at the 1973 Academy Awards

In 1973, just weeks after the Wounded Knee occupation began, bisexual actor Marlon Brando refused his Academy Award for acting in The Godfather and instead, used this first-ever internationally broadcast ceremony to have Indigenous actor and activist Sacheen Littlefeather explain Brando’s reasons, which included a denunciation of the mainstream media’s white-out of the Wounded Knee occupation. You can hear Out-FM's coverage last summer of those dramatic events and aftermath, as well as reading the background of Brando's decade-long solidarity with Native struggles, by going to this page.

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Short Indigenous video about the Wounded Knee uprising

Two-minute video about the 50^th anniversary of the uprising, produced by ICT, a nonprofit public news enterprise focused on Indigenous issues.

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About Out-FM
Out-FM is a weekly progressive, intersectional queer show on listener-sponsored, noncommercial WBAI/Pacifica Radio. It airs at 99.5 and wbai.org, generally on Tuesdays from 8-9 PM.  Please support us by donating to WBAI. Become a member for $25 or a BAI Buddy (sustainer) for $10/month or more. Go to give2wbai.org or call 212-209-2950 and let the station know you listen to Out-FM by supporting the station with a donation. Be sure and mention our show when you donate.  Sign up for Out-FM's Weekly Newsletter with show announcements.