The General ♥ Seattle Dan and Tammy and Rev. Jerry

I've been rather out of it because of my illness and I neglected to thank everyone for their nice Christmas books.

Thanks. I love them.

Update: Mississippi has nothing over South Dakota

I just finished The Unquiet Grave : The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country by Steve Hendricks. Wow. If you're unfamiliar with the history of Indian civil rights, you have to read this book. If your familiar with the history of Indian civil rights, you have to read this book. If you've read Peter Matthiessen's In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, you absolutely have to read this book.

What the US Government and the State of South Dakota did to the Lakotas in the seventies was unconscionable. It's disheartening that so few people know about the FBI and BIA's support of open warfare on the Pine Ridge Reservation. A political militia no less evil than Sadr's Mahdi Army operated openly and with the support of federal agencies and the military. In one case, the BIA police watched for hours as the Guardians of the Ogalala Nation--a name they chose for it acronym, "GOON"--partied while shooting up and firebombing a town known for harboring dissenters.

Pine Ridge had the highest murder rates in the country during this period, higher even that of Detroit, and many, if not most, of those murders were political in nature. Murders are handled by federal agencies when they occur on reservations, but when the FBI or the Department of Justice investigated these murders, more often than not their intention seemed to be to cover up rather than to solve the cases.

It was COINTELPRO applied to Indian dissenters.

Hendricks doesn't let AIM off the hook either. He tells the story of how Anna Mae Aquash's murderers were brought to justice. They weren't GOONs as Matthiessen suspected, but were AIM members probably acting on the orders of Dennis Banks and/or Clyde Bellecourt who were convinced in an FBI COINTELPRO operation that she was an informant. He also informs us that AIM executed a Black civil rights activist (and possible FBI agent provocateur) during the occupation of Wounded Knee.

Wild Bill Janklow, former SD Governor and AG, former Congressman, convicted vehicular manslaughter perp, and rapist gets treated with all the respect he deserves. Of all of the villains in this slice of history, he might be the worst, or at least a close second to Oglala Chair Big Dick Wilson and a half dozen FBI agents and GOONs.

Buy this book through the Amazon link on my side bar, or if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000. You won't regret it.