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American Social History Projec
WHO BUILT AMERICA?

American Indian Movement—Founding Objectives, July 1968

Background: Many of the thousands of Native Americans who left their reservations under the “termination” policies of the 1950s faced discrimination, harassment, low-wage labor, and substandard housing. In July 1968, Indigenous community leaders in Minneapolis called a meeting to address these problems. Over two hundred Native Americans gathered, drafted a set of objectives, and formed an organization, initially called the Concerned Indian American Coalition, but the name was soon changed to the American Indian Movement (AIM). The Minneapolis group established a street patrol to counter police abuse, set up a Legal Rights Center to provide free legal aid, and organized the Indian Health Board for medical care.

We the concerned Indian Americans, residents of the Minneapolis area, organized to upgrade the conditions in which the urban Indian lives and to improve the image of the urban Indian.

We the Concerned Indians Americans, to be known as the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.), residents of Minneapolis and greater Minneapolis do hereby adopt the following goals:

Our main objective is to solicit and broaden opportunities for the urban Indian in order that he may enjoy his full rights as a citizen of these United States.

Short-term Objectives

  • Establish a program to better the Indian housing problem
  • Establish a program directed toward Indian youth
  • Establish a positive program for employment of Indian Americans
  • Establish a program to educate industry in the area of Indian culture and its effects on the Indian
  • Establish a program to improve the communications between the Indian and the community
  • Establish a program to educate the Indian citizen in his responsibility to his community

Long-term Objectives

  • To generate unification within the Indian people
  • To inform all Indian Americans of community and local affairs
  • To encourage Indian Americans to become active in community affairs
  • To bring the economic status of Indian Americans up to that of the general community

Source: American Indian Movement: Past, Present and Future, AIM Interpretive Center, 12-page booklet, (no date) from the American Indian Movement website, https://www.aimovement.org.