Opinion

Ernestine Chasing Hawk: Jealousy played role in Anna Mae's death

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Family members mourn at the gravesite of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. Photo courtesy of Denise Pictou Maloney

Did Nawiziwin orchestrate the death of Anna Mae?
By Ernestine Chasing Hawk
Native Sun News Editor
www.nsweekly.com

As a rookie journalist working for Tim Giago’s Lakota Journal in February of 2004, one of my first assignments was to cover the trial of Arlo Looking Cloud for his role the in execution style death of American Indian Movement activist Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash.

It was in the Rapid City Federal Court House, and I was there every day, listening to hours and hours of testimony. I listened carefully trying to understand what Anna Mae could have done that was so terrible that she deserved to die for it. I heard over and over again that people had accused her of being an FBI informant, but somehow that just didn’t make sense.

Testimony instead painted a picture of a beautiful, articulate, educated Mi'kmaq Indian woman who distinguished herself as an individual concerned about the social and political injustices committed against First Nations people who was well liked by the leadership of A.I.M.

Anna Mae helped establish the North American Indian Center of Boston, and later taught for the Teaching and Research in Bicultural Education School Project (TRIBES), headquartered in Bar Harbor, Maine. In 1970 she helped seize a replica of the Mayflower II in Plymouth, Massachusetts as part of a demonstration against the European invasion of North America and in 1972 she marched in the Trail of Broken Treaties and helped occupy the B.I.A. Headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was her commitment to A.I.M. that would bring her to South Dakota in 1973 where she would join the occupation at Wounded Knee.