Banks, Dennis James, 1937-2017

Dennis James Banks, also known by his Ojibwe name Nowa Cumig, was born on April 12, 1937, in his grandparents’ home on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. He was raised by his grandparents, Josh and Jenny Drumbeater, until going to the Pipestone Indian Boarding School at the age of five. There, he experienced physical and emotional abuse and forgot most of the Ojibwe language because he was not allowed to speak it. He was transferred to the Wahpeton Indian School in North Dakota for junior high school, and then to the Flandreau Indian Boarding School on the Santee Sioux reservation in South Dakota for high school, before eventually running away to return to the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.

To escape from the poverty to which he returned, Banks joined the United States Air Force in 1954 at the age of 17. He was stationed in Japan, during which the military faced protest from some Japanese individuals over planned expansion of the Yokota Air Base, and he was told to shoot protesters who came onto the base. Banks later explains that this event had a profound impact on him, partially because he was in a relationship with a Japanese woman named Machiko Inouye. With Machiko, Banks had his first child, a daughter named Michiko. After the Air Force would not grant Banks and Machiko a marriage certificate, he deserted the military and hid with Machiko and Michiko until he was found by the military, arrested, and returned to the United States.

After returning to the United States, Banks married and had four children with a woman named Jeanette. He was arrested for burglary in 1966 after stealing groceries for his family and was sentenced to two years in prison, during which his marriage to Jeanette ended. He was released in May of 1968. During his prison sentence, he read about and studied civil and human rights and ongoing protest movements in the United States during the time period. His previous experiences and these readings convinced him that Native Americans needed to begin a unified rights organization.

After his release from prison, Banks co-founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) on July 28, 1968, alongside Clyde Bellecourt, George Mitchell, Harold Goodsky, Frances Fairbanks, and about two hundred meeting attendees. With AIM, Banks led and participated in several events as a part of the Red Power movement. Banks visited Alcatraz Island during its occupation by the Indians of All Tribes from 1969 to 1971, who aimed to bring recognition to Native American sovereignty and treaties broken by the United States. In 1972, Banks helped organize the Trail of Broken Treaties, in which a caravan of hundreds of activists traveled from the West Coast to Washington, D.C. to deliver a Twenty-Point Position Paper to the United States Congress to address Native American sovereignty and future treaty negotiations. After arriving in Washington, D.C., on November 3, 1972, Banks and other activists seized and occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs after the Congress refused to meet with them. The occupation lasted until November 9, 1972. On February 27, 1973, Banks and AIM occupied Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota after attempts to impeach Chairman Richard Wilson, who they saw as autocratic, failed. Conflict with the United States Marshals and the FBI during the occupation resulted in at least two deaths of Native American activists and two injured federal agents. The occupation ended on May 8, 1973, at which point Banks and others were arrested. Banks was acquitted of most charges and granted amnesty by California Governor Jerry Brown. During his time on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Banks met Darlene Kamook Nichols, whom he later married and with whom he had four children.

Remaining in California afterward, Banks taught tribal federal law at the Deganawidah Quetzalcoatl University, of which he became chancellor in 1979. However, in 1984, fearing the new governor of California would extradite him to South Dakota over charges remaining from riots leading up to the Wounded Knee occupation, Banks went to New York to live with the Onondaga Nation. A year later, tired of living as a fugitive, Banks returned to South Dakota to surrender to federal officials, after which he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He served half of his sentence before being released on parole in 1985, at which point he began working as a drugs and alcohol counselor at the Lone Man School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In 1989, after his divorce with Kamook, Banks went to Newport, Kentucky, to stage protests against individuals digging up Native American grave sites. There, he met Alice Lambert, with whom he started a romantic relationship and lived with for ten years. They had a son, Minot.

In his later years, Banks continued to work as an activist for Native Americans by leading spiritual runs and participating in walks across the country to raise awareness. He moved to Federal Dam, Minnesota, with his son Minot, with whom he started a business in which they harvested rice and maple syrup. Banks contracted pneumonia after an open-heart surgery and died on October 29, 2017.