American Civil Movement - without the images and related captionsAmerican Indian Movement (AIM)Who were they? What did they suffer? The American Indian Movement (AIM) began with 200 native “Indians” of the United States who convened a group of Native American communist activist leaders: George Mitchell, Dennis Banks, and Clyde Bellecourt, as well as Russell Means. The latter 20th century has seen a great increase in institutionalized racism and legal discrimination against citizens of African descent in the United States. Throughout the post-Civil War period, poll taxes, acts of terror such as lynching (often perpetrated by groups such as the revived Ku Klux Klan, founded in the Reconstruction South), and discriminatory laws such as the "grandfather clauses" ( which prevented poor and illiterate African American former slaves and their descendants from voting, but without denying the right to vote to poor and illiterate whites) kept black Americans alienated, particularly in the Southern states. Was AIM inevitable, even if these individuals had not formed it? The American Indian Movement represents the symbolic unity of Indians protesting and fighting for rights to be treated equally. The movement was carried forward by people who have suffered racial consequences and segregation, people who courageously come together to set their lives on a better path and are determined to create racial harmony in the United States. Therefore, even without inspiring individuals like Russell Means, the movement may still have occurred. Evidence prior to the creation of AIM showed American Indian dissatisfaction with the imbalance of rights in society. The so-called “justification” law at that time greatly favored white men over... middle of paper......ence. However, is this what we would have done if we were them? There are many better ways that could have resolved these chasms of racism between Native and non-Native Americans in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Our methods are rather abstract, but if there were also several white people advocating and raising awareness about racism towards indigenous Americans, it would be very useful to hire people to teach children (especially non-indigenous ones) how racism is wrong and demonstrate that mixing different ethnicities in a community it could work well. Personally I think that while the violence and media attention worked well in the end, it wasn't necessary. Now it's our turn as current members of the global community. Thank you for taking this journey with us and I hope YOU can look to the past history of Native Americans as an inspiration to promote multiculturalism and anti-racism!