Eddie Benton-Banai, Native-American activist, dies at 89
Minneapolis, December 3 (RHC)-- The renowned Native American activist Eddie Benton-Banai has died at the age of 89.
Benton-Banai grew up on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Reservation in northern Wisconsin in the 1930s. In the 1960s, he met Native American activist Clyde Bellecourt in a Minnesota prison. The pair went on to co-found the American Indian Movement, where Benton-Banai led organizing efforts against police harassment and brutality directed at Indigenous peoples in Minneapolis.
Eddie Benton-Banai also helped launch the International Indian Treaty Council, which works for the sovereignty and self-determination of Indigenous peoples.
