Pat Bellanger
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Pat Bellanger
Pat Bellanger (1943-2015), Ojibwe, grew up on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation and later moved to the Twin Cities where she co-founded the American Indian Movement in 1968. She helped organize many of the key protests of the Red Power era, including the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offices in Washington, D.C. in 1972. Much of her work in AIM focused on family and education advocacy in the Twin Cities where she was a leader of the survival school movement. Bellanger was also a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council, and co-founded Women of All Red Nations (WARN), which drew attention to the distinct ways that settler-colonial violence was inflicted on Native women.
Throughout her life, Pat remained a passionate and unwavering advocate for Indian women and children, earning her the title of “Grandmother AIM.”
In the run up to Wounded Knee, Pat Bellanger was working in AIM’s central office in Minneapolis. She received a phone call from Gladys Bissonette, who told her of violence that was being perpetrated against local people by tribal chairman Richard “Dick” Wilson and his paramilitary “GOON” squad. On behalf of OSCRO, Gladys Bissonette asked for AIM’s assistance on Pine Ridge. From Minneapolis, Bellanger coordinated AIM’s Wounded Knee effort, serving as a nodal point in the national network of communication and support.
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