Minneapolis, October 30 (RHC)-- Dennis Banks, the legendary Anishinaabe leader and Native American activist, has died at the age of 80.  In 1968, Banks co-founded the American Indian Movement in the United States.  A year later, he took part in the occupation of Alcatraz Island in California. 

In 1972, Dennis Banks assisted in AIM’s “Trail of Broken Treaties,” a caravan of numerous activist groups across the United States to Washington, D.C., to call attention to the plight of Native Americans. That same year, AIM took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington, D.C. 

In early 1973, AIM members took over and occupied Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for 71 days, which some have come to call Wounded Knee II. 

Dennis Banks remained politically active throughout his life.  Last winter, he joined protests against construction of the Dakota Access pipeline at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.  

Dennis Banks died Sunday night due to complications from heart surgery.  He will be laid to rest in his home community of Leech Lake, Minnesota.