COURTESY OF AIM
Muhammed Ali (back left) and AIM founder Clyde Bellecourt, July 1978.

By Sandy Spieler

I arrived in Minneapolis in 1973 and moved into the collective household right across the street from Little Earth of United Tribes just as it was being built. Out of that house, the MayDay Parade was born, and so the parade begins each year from the field alongside Little Earth of United Tribes. 

In my first month in Minneapolis, I ventured to the Little Earth gym to hear you of the American Indian Movement speak of your work. 

Your voices shook me to my core.

Your call for spiritual grounding as social justice and truth reached inside me and woke within me a need to reckon with colonial histories. You brought me to this neighborhood with a cry to deal with the layers of institutionalized trauma and live in reciprocal relationship with the life”“giving majesty of this world.

I owe much gratitude to you of the American Indian Movement (AIM) for teaching me so much. While your work upholding Native Communities is often detailed, I know I am not alone in noting the profound influence you have had on my life as a white woman.  Your influence in the world is great, and with each passing year I recognize the immensity of your influence in this neighborhood. Your work continues to inspire and challenge me. 

Please accept my profound thanks and congratulations on 50 years of visionary work. 

Editor”™s note: This is reprinted from the MayDay 2019 tabloid courtesy of In The Heart of the Beast.

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