Clyde Bellecourt, a Founder of the American Indian Movement, Dies at 85

Clyde Bellecourt, a laminitis of the American Indian Movement who led convulsive protests successful the 1970s astatine Wounded Knee, S.D., and successful Washington implicit the national government’s grim grounds of breached pact obligations, and who aboriginal pressured sports teams to expunge their Native American nicknames, died connected Tuesday astatine his location successful Minneapolis. He was 85.

His wife, Peggy Sue (Holmes) Bellecourt, said the origin was complications of pancreatic cancer.

Mr. Bellecourt whitethorn not person been arsenic salient to the wide nationalist arsenic Dennis Banks and Russell Means, and his accomplishments whitethorn person been eclipsed by a checkered grounds of transgression arrests and internecine brawls, 1 of which ended with him changeable successful the tummy by a rival, Carter Camp, the movement’s recently elected nationalist chairman, successful 1973.

Regardless, helium was a unit to beryllium reckoned with.

He galvanized aggrieved but diffuse Native American dissidents aft the work of “Bury My Heart astatine Wounded Knee” (1970), Dee Brown’s heartbreaking chronicle of the government’s historical betrayal of Indian treaties. He besides dramatized their political, economic, social, taste and acquisition agendas and redeemed his Ojibwe (also known arsenic the Chippewa tribe) name, Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun, which means “Thunder Before the Storm.”

Wounded Knee was wherever successful 1890, successful 1 of the past bloody conflicts of the American Indian Wars, astir 350 Lakota men, women and children were massacred by U.S. troops.

“We are the landlords of the country, it is the extremity of the month, the rent is due, and A.I.M. is going to collect,” Mr. Bellecourt was quoted arsenic saying.

By then, helium had already shifted from the politics of confrontation to educating his chap Native Americans, and the American nationalist successful general.

In 1972, helium began the bilingual and bicultural Heart of the Earth Survival School. In aboriginal years, helium established the Peacemaker Center for Indian youth; the American Indian Movement Patrol, to supply information for the Minneapolis Indian community; a Legal Rights Center; the Native American Community Clinic; Women of Nations Eagle’s Nest Shelter; the International Indian Treaty Council; and the American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center, a programme to determination payment recipients to full-time jobs.

He besides helped make the National Coalition connected Racism successful Sports and the Media, which urged professional, amateur and schoolhouse teams to wantonness nicknames similar Redskins, Indians and Braves, which helium saw arsenic demeaning stereotypes.

“We’re trying to person radical we’re quality beings and not mascots,” he said successful 1992. “They’re making fools of themselves and of america successful the process.”

In caller years some the Washington Redskins of the National Football League and Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians person dropped their aged names.

On Facebook, the Grand Governing Council of the American Indian Movement lauded Mr. Bellecourt’s “fierce dedication, monumental beingness and selfless leadership” and said that helium “embodied the tone of the American Indian Movement, the tone of resistance, the spot and the resoluteness our radical person held for implicit 530 years.”

On Tuesday, besides connected Facebook, Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, wrote that Mr. Bellecourt’s “legacy volition unrecorded connected successful the argumentation changes that created program and classrooms that are much supportive and welcoming of Native youth.”

Clyde attended a Roman Catholic ngo schoolhouse tally by Benedictine nuns connected the preservation until helium was a teenager. The household past moved to Minneapolis, wherever helium struggled academically, dropped retired of precocious school, failed to find a occupation and was jailed for burglaries and robberies.

In prison, helium met Mr. Banks and Eddie Benton-Banai, who was moving a taste programme for different Native American inmates. After they were released, successful mid-1968, they founded the American Indian Movement with George Mitchell, Charles Deegan and others to assistance municipality Indians woody with discrimination, unemployment, poorness and insufficient housing. Mr. Bellecourt’s older member Vernon was besides progressive successful the movement.

Mr. Bellecourt, who aboriginal worked for a inferior company, was chosen arsenic the movement’s archetypal president and helped motorboat the alleged Trail of Broken Treaties, a agelong march from the West Coast to Washington, successful 1972.

In summation to his wife, whose Japanese American begetter was interred during World War II, Mr. Bellecourt is survived by 4 children, Susan, Tonya, Little Crow and Little Wolf; and a fig of grandchildren.

He pleaded blameworthy pursuing his apprehension successful 1985 successful a cause possession case. He aboriginal said that the apprehension and the 2 years helium spent successful situation helped him interruption his addiction.

In 2016 helium published an autobiography, “Thunder Before the Storm,” written with the writer Jon Lurie, In it, helium wrote that earlier helium could assistance heal others arsenic a person of A.I.M. successful the precocious 1960s, helium had to marque bid with his creator and heal himself successful a prayerful sweat lodge ceremony, which yet transformed the movement’s docket from convulsive confrontation to constructive engagement.

“I understood that the lone mode we were going to win successful the Movement was to spot healing and spirituality astatine the halfway of everything we did,” Mr. Bellecourt wrote. “The spirits successful the ceremonial told america that we were to proceed connected our journey, that we had to bring backmost the tone of the Indian people.”