Leonard Crow Dog, 1942-2021

The “Red Giants” of the American Indian Movement, as Navajo warrior and AIM foot soldier Lenny Foster called them, have fallen one by one. The latest is Leonard Crow Dog, the Lakota spiritual leader, who died earlier this month from liver cancer. Chief Crow Dog was in charge of maintaining spiritual resistance at Wounded Knee, the sacred site on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota where over 200 AIM warriors and Lakota tribespeople took a stand against the militarized might of the U.S. government for 71 days in the wintry months of 1973. The fact that Chief Crow Dog — as well as fellow AIM leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks — died peacefully as old men is a remarkable achievement in itself. Chief Crow Dog called the courageous Wounded Knee occupation — which withstood over 500,000 rounds of fire from federal forces and vigilantes — “the greatest moment in my life… and the greatest deed done by Native Americans in this century.”

Margaret Talbot and I tell the searing and inspiring story of Wounded Knee — including how Foster led AIM chief Banks on a daring escape on the final night of the siege — in our new book, By the Light of Burning Dreams.

Leonard Crow Dog