1972 LaDonna Harris said the bicentennial should be used to “educate the rest of America” to Indian realities. “We are tired of being quaint tourist attractions.”

The 200th Bicentennial Commission has come “under fire” from “hostile Indians” and at a press conference Americans for Indian Opportunity felt that the Commission is insensitive to the first Americans. The bicentennial, the Indians said, marks “the beginning of the mass genocide of the original people of this country. No people and no nation has given so much and received so little as the Indian people and Indian nations of this country.”  They demanded a role in the Commission, and funds to insure they can participate. LaDonna Harris said the bicentennial should be used to “educate the rest of America” to Indian realities. “We are tired of being quaint tourist attractions.” 

1972 Aug 4, El Paso Herald Post 

Indians angry over state monument
1972 Oct 22, Star Tribune
Sioux Falls, SD - A spokesman for the American Indian Movement (AIM) said… that Indians plan to replace a monument in Mankato, Minn. with one of their own.      AIM Field Director Russell Means said the monument has been erected at the site where 38 Sioux Indians were hanged without a trail. He said a replica of the scaffold used the hangings is part of the monument.

      “I’m pretty sure the scaffold will be coming down. It is part of the sickness of white America which still prevails,” Means said.
      Means, an Oglala Sioux from Pine Ridge, SD, said Indians would erect their own monument to the “barbarity of Abraham Lincoln.” He said Lincoln, ordered the hanging the day after he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

      Means is leading a group of 300 Indians to Washington, along what the Indians call “The Trail of Broken Treaties,” a reference to the agreements they say the U.S. government made with Indians and then broke.
      The caravan, a long line of cars and buses, many of them piled high with luggage and supplies, left Sioux Falls.. after an overnight stay.
      The caravan was to spend last night in Mankato and travel to St. Paul today for a five-day planning session with other groups scheduled to begin Monday. The groups plan to rendezvous in Washington Nov 1.
      Means said the Indian group would ask for federal government for “changes the Indian people can see and feel.”

1972 Oct 22, Star Tribune