Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement.

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.
• Position: Book Review

OJIBWA WARRIOR Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement BY DENNIS BANKS WITH RICHARD ERDOES UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS, 2004 362 PAGES, $29.95

Dennis Banks is a name few will recognize, although the publicity for the book calls him probably "the most influential Indian leader of our time." Among those few, some will damn him; others will sing his praises. Born on the Ojibwa (Chippewa) reservation of Leech Lake in northern Minnesota, he was given an Indian name meaning, "At the center of the Universe; Forcibly educated at an Indian grammar school in Pipestone, Minn., he grew to hate whites and their disciplined life. (Native Americans generally are regarded by white culture as extremely permissive in the rearing of children.)

He tried running away from grammar school and later from high school, as well as charges that he lost his Indian identity without acquiring a Caucasian one. Neither fish nor fowl, he had all the makings of an anarchist. (Whatever one thinks about the government trying to change the culture of the Indians, its intention was a worthy one, namely, getting them into the mainstream so they could lift themselves economically from the terrible conditions in which they lived.)

Much of the book, co-authored with a white photographer friend, Richard Erdoes, reads like a diatribe against American culture. His school was a "concentration camp"; the police were "pigs"; and the entire culture "racist." The Indians were among the most "victimized" of this nation's people. He did join the Air Force, though, and was sent to Japan, which by then was being pacified. A "no frat" policy was de rigueur there, but he ignored it and married a Japanese woman who gave birth to a baby girl. The Army would not recognize the marriage and sent him back to the states, but not without his going AWOL twice.

He was jailed several times, married another Indian woman who had four children, and he fathered four more. Unable to support his family, he stole food and eventually was sent to a penitentiary, spending some time in "solitary" for unacceptable behavior. At the prison, he plotted his life's work. That involved becoming "Indian" again by partaking...