National Museum of the American Indian

Anne Pearse-Hocker negatives, photographs, and other materials, 1970-1973

Summary

Collection ID:
NMAI.AC.028
Creators:
Pearse-Hocker, Anne
Dates:
1970-1973
Languages:
No linguistic content; Not applicable
.
Physical Description:
54 Contact sheets
black and white
35 mm.
black and white
8 x 10 in.
Repository:
The majority of Pearse-Hocker's momentous negatives give eyewitness account to two weeks of both the mundane and brutal reality of daily life during the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The takeover of the town and the conflict between about 200 members of AIM (American Indian Movement, the Native American civil rights activist organization begun in the 1968) and the United States Marshals Service began on February 27 and lasted for 71 days, resulting in tragedy on both sides of the conflict. Members of AIM along with some local Oglala (Lakota) Sioux from the local reservation took over the town in protest against the United States Government's history of broken treaties with various Native groups, the poverty and maltreatment of Native populations, as well as in defiance against the corruption and paternalism within the local subsidiary of the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs). The siege finally came to an end on May 5 when members of AIM and the assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the US Justice Department Harlington Wood Jr. settled on a ceasefire. Kent Frizzell served as Chief Government Negotiator in the capacity of Assistant Attorney General (Land and Natural Resources Division, U. S. Department of Justice) and later as Solicitor, U. S. Department of the Interior. Among those pictured both during and post-conflict are AIM activists Dennis Banks, Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt, Ted and Russell Means, Frank Clearwater, Wallace Black Elk and Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. A small number of negatives also document AIM's takeover of the BIA building and the AIM Powwow both in Minneapolis in 1970.

Arrangement note

Arrangement note
Negatives: organized in binders; arranged in sleeves by strip and image number, interspersed with relevant applicable contact sheets

Biographical/Historical note

Biographical/Historical note
Anne Pearse-Hocker is a photojournalist who first encountered the American Indian Movement while a student on assignment for a journalism class at the University of Kansas. Her photographs document some very important moments in the early history of the American Indian Movement (AIM).
Pearse-Hocker was scheduled to interview the area director of the BIA in Minneapolis in the spring of 1970 as part of an Investigative Reporting class, and walked into the middle of an AIM occupation of the building, which she documented on film and with taped interviews. She stayed well past her spring break plans to use this opportunity to develop contacts with AIM leaders Clyde Bellecourt and Dennis Banks.
Her connections came in handy in 1973 during the occupation of Wounded Knee. Pearse-Hocker sneaked into the compound with a CBS news crew at night, and was allowed to remain due to her acquaintance with Banks, who remembered her from Minneapolis. She had strategically arrived the evening before the standoff was supposed to end, but when the settlement negotiations fell through, she remained in the compound for an additional few weeks, documenting the daily events including the firefight that claimed Frank Clearwater's life.
Pearse-Hocker returned to Wounded Knee in 1998 to revisit the site on the 25th anniversary of the occupation, and documented the experience for the journal 'Native Americas' (Spring 1998 issue) with new photographs of some of the survivors of the event.
After a career of news photography in broadcast journalism, she is retired and living in Montana.

Administration

Custodial History note
Donated by Anne Pearse-Hocker, 1997.

Using the Collection

Conditions Governing Access note
Access is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the Archive Center to make an appointment.
Conditions Governing Use note
Copyright: Anne Pearse-Hocker, 1973. Researchers must contact copyright holder for permissions, reproductions, and use.

Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (S.D.) Geographic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Teton Indians Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Pine Ridge (S.D.) Geographic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Black-and-white negatives Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Indians of North America -- Government relations Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wounded Knee (S.D.) -- History -- Indian occupation, 1973 Geographic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Oglala Indians -- Government relations Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Contact sheets Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Oglala Indians Cultural Context Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Frizzell, Kent, 1929- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
American Indian Movement Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bellecourt, Clyde H. (Clyde Howard), 1936- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Black Elk, Wallace H. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Banks, Dennis Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Aquash, Anna Mae, 1945-1976 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Means, Russell, 1939- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bellecourt, Vernon Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

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