Opinion

Ernestine Chasing Hawk: Dennis Banks professes love for Anna Mae

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Dennis Banks, a co-founder of the American Indian Movement, seen on the The Longest Walk 5 this year. Photo from "A Good Day To Die" The Dennis Banks Documentary / Facebook

Dennis Banks professes love for Anna Mae
By Ernestine Chasing Hawk
Native Sun News Editor
www.nsweekly.com

RAPID CITY –– Twenty-eight years after the body of Mi’kmaq Indian Activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was found near Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Reservation, an Oglala man stood trial for his role in her 1975 disappearance.

In February of 2004, Arlo Looking Cloud was convicted of “being a party to 1st Degree Murder” in the death of Anna Mae.

Six years later, in 2010, a Canadian man was convicted for being the trigger man in her execution. John Boy Patton aka John Graham was sentenced to life behind bars in a South Dakota State Prison.

Testimony against the leaders of the American Indian Movement helped convince a jury that the duo were guilty of her assassination because they believed she was an informant. However the most damning testimony in both trials to support the rumors came from women who were in love with the man who led a movement that would redefine forever how indigenous people perceived themselves.

Testimony from those women in both the Looking Cloud and Graham trial would lead many to believe that A.I.M. leadership did not trust Anna Mae. However one can find telltale signs in that testimony that shows otherwise.

Dennis Banks an early leader of A.I.M. from Minnesota candidly spoke about his relationship with the Mi’kmaq woman from Nova Scotia.

“We were in love,” Banks told Eric Konigsberg, 2014 New York Times Magazine article titled “Who killed Anna Mae?”

(The 4-Part Series will conclude next week)