I was going to wax lyrical on how good it was to be with and play with Rosie and Remy, and Mona and Boo, outside this morning. How crisp the morning air smelled and felt; the sound of leaves crunching; the happiness of four dogs chasing two toys, always in constant motion. When I returned home, I glanced at the up-dated news, and my heart fell into my toes. Russell Means, Native American activist, member of the American Indian Movement, and actor, is dead. The Oglala Sioux spokesman said that Means had died early this morning at his ranch in Porcupine, South Dakota after battling inoperable esophageal cancer. Born in Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in November 1939, Means
grew up in the San Francisco area before becoming an early leader of AIM. He was baptized Oyate Wacinyapin, which means "works for the people" in the Lakota (Oglala) language. He
often was embroiled in controversy, partly because of AIM's alleged involvement
in the 1975 slaying of Annie Mae Aquash. But Means also was known for his role of Chingachcook in the movie "The Last
of the Mohicans" and had run unsuccessfully for the Libertarian nomination for
president in 1988. The American Indian Movement was founded in the late 1960s to protest the U.S.
government's treatment of Native Americans and demand the government honor its
treaties with Indian tribes. Russell Means was the first national president of AIM, elected in 1968. Means told the Associated Press in 2011 that, before AIM, there
had been no advocate on a national or international scale for American Indians,
and that Native Americans were ashamed of their heritage. We have lost a great American. May he travel the Red Road with honor.
Russell Means potrait by Andy Warhol in 1976
Russell Means in South Dakota
