American Indian activist Carter Camp dies at 72

Carter Camp, a longtime activist with the American Indian Movement who was a leader in the Wounded Knee occupation in South Dakota, died Dec. 27 in White Eagle, Okla. He was 72.

A sister, Casey Camp-Horinek, said her brother had cancer.

Mr. Camp, a member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, was a longtime member of the American Indian Movement, organizing more than 30 chapters in his home state of Oklahoma, Camp-Horinek said. The American Indian Movement was founded in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans and demand that the government honor its treaties with Indian tribes.

He had a leading role in the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, in which a caravan of Native American activists drove across the country to Washington to protest treaties between tribes and the federal government. They took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs for several days.

The following year, Mr. Carter headed to South Dakota with other movement leaders, including Russell Means and Dennis Banks. There they organized the Wounded Knee uprising, a 71-day siege that included several gun battles with federal officers. Means died in 2012 at age 72.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/american-indian-activist-carter-camp-dies-at-72/2014/01/02/a0cfdcee-73f7-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html