Russell Means

(1939 - 2012)

A leader of the American Indian Movement, the Oglala Sioux activist Russell Means helped organize the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972—a march on Washington, DC, that culminated in a weeklong takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs—and the following year helped orchestrate the occupation of the town of Wounded Knee, a seventy-one-day armed standoff with federal agents. After leaving the movement in 1988, he became a Hollywood actor, with roles in The Last of the Mohicans, Natural Born Killers, and other films.