On July 28, 1968, several hundred Native Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota attend a meeting, organized by community activists George Mitchell, Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt, to discuss issues facing their local Indigenous community. This event marks the start of the American Indian Movement, or AIM, a primary proponent of the Red Power movement. Inspired by the gains of the Black civil rights movement, AIM sought to address the extreme suffering of Indigenous people and create a path for self-determination and empowerment.

Several major protest actions put AIM and its causes in the national spotlight. In 1969, AIM participated in a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island to reclaim the federal land for Indigenous people. In November 1972, it organized the “Trail of Broken Treaties,” a cross-country caravan to Washington to meet with lawmakers and demand that the government fulfill all its treaty commitments. The action culminated in an occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices that catapulted AIM to national attention. And in 1973, an occupation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, to protest government corruption resulted in a 71-day standoff and ultimately, a deadly battle with law enforcement. Such activities not only put AIM in the national spotlight, but also squarely in the sights of the FBI and the CIA, which were working covertly to discredit and disrupt domestic political organizations.

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