Celebrating Native American Heritage

Founded in July 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian advocacy group organized to address issues related to sovereignty, leadership, and treaties. Particularly in its early years, AIM also protested racism and civil rights violations against Native Americans. During the 1950s, increasing numbers of American Indians had been forced to move away from reservations and tribal culture because of federal Indian termination policies intended to assimilate them into mainstream American culture. Founders of AIM included Mary Jane Wilson, Dennis Banks, Vernon Bellecourt, Clyde Bellecourt, and George Mitchell, while other activists like Russell Means worked with the organization prominently in the 1970s.

The Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives has an extensive collection of documentary and photographic works on American Indians with an emphasis on indigenous people in the Greater Southwest. The Digital Library represents a virtual selection from the archives, library and art collections including: Photographs both historic and modern, Repository guides, Broadsides, booklets and brochures, Correspondence, Artists’ biography reports, Drawings and prints, and Images of art objects.