Frank Fools Crow - Wounded Knee

Wounded Knee

In 1973 members of the American Indian Movement seized the village of Wounded Knee to protest the United States Government's policies on Native Americans and due to the rule of Dick Wilson the Reservation's Chairman, who blatantly abused his power and even had his own "goon squad" who terrorized the people on the reservation. The traditional Oglalas who opposed Wilson and his regime formed the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization; this included Fools Crow The night that the occupation took place the leaders of AIM met with the tribal leaders, Fools Crow prominent among them. Fools Crow told the young leaders, in his native Lakota language (he never spoke English in public) and said to them, "Go ahead and do it, go to Wounded Knee. You can't get in the BIA office and the tribal office, so take your brothers from the American Indian Movement and go to Wounded Knee and make your stand there." Fools Crow rode in the lead car along with AIM leader Dennis Banks.

On the list of demands presented to a Justice Department operative, Frank Fools Crow’s name was listed along with other chiefs and medicine men as supporters of the movement. After the occupiers named themselves The Independent Oglala Nations, Fools Crow traveled with Matthew King, his interpreter, and Russell Means to the United Nations to make a speech. Though no official transcript of this speech remains, there is no doubt to its significance.

After the murder of Frank Clearwater at Wounded Knee, and because the U.S. government wouldn’t allow his body to be buried there, his wife agreed to bury him on Leonard Crow Dog’s property on the Rosebud Reservation, and had the wake at Fools Crow’s house, where the body was placed in a teepee and covered with a blanket as the mourners came to pay their respect.

Fools Crow played an important role in the negotiations to end the occupation. Hank Adams, the personal representative of the President, arrived with the agreement to the proposal that the chiefs had sent to the White House on May 3. Adams met Fools Crow and a hundred others near a fence around the property. Adams handed a letter through a barbed-wire fence to Fools Crow, who was wearing the traditional attire of buckskin and a headdress. The letter appealed for the siege of the village to come to a close. Fools Crow and the other leaders accepted the proposal, which stated that the White House would send representatives to Pine Ridge to discuss a treaty in the third week of May and would “get tough” on Dick Wilson, the unscrupulous Chairman of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Fools Crow and the other chiefs delivered the letter to the AIM leaders and told them that he believed that it was time to end it.

In an article in the New York Times on May 8, 1973, the negotiations were said to have taken place at Fools Crow's house around the third week of May. In an interview, Dick Wilson said, “My people know that Fools Crow is a zero,” plainly showing that he had no respect for the traditions that Fools Crow stood for. In Washington D.C. on May 17, The Oglalas had their promised White House meeting, and Fools Crow was present. Of the five promised White House aides, two were there. Fools Crow was told that the historic treaties were dead.

Fools Crow spoke at a congressional hearing on June 16 and 17, 1973, following the conclusion of the Wounded Knee occupation; he only spoke Lakota, as was his way, and used an interpreter, Matthew King, to translate for him. He gave his reasons for the occupation, the main reason being the removal of Dick Wilson. Senator George McGovern said that he would try to remove Wilson, but wasn’t sure if he had the power to do so. Fools Crow asserted that McGovern had promised earlier to remove Dick Wilson. Ultimately, Wilson held his position until losing re-election in 1976. The occupation continued for 71 days, ending after an agreement was reached between federal officials and a Sioux delegation, of which Fools Crow was “a prominent member.”