Native America – Documentary Shooters

Marvin (Pima native), A.I.M. (American Indian Movement) takeover of the B.I.A.
(Bureau of Indian Affairs office), Chicago, March 23, 1970

Text and Photograph by Bruce Berman

I was having a pretty good year when I was 23.
What the heck… worked in a camera store, the boss let me buy a Canon QL camera at cost, there was built-in “subject matter” everywhere. This was the aftermath months of MLK’s assassination, the riotous 1968 Democratic debacle, Bobbie’s takedown,
in L.A. and rthe rise of the SDS Weathermen.
Even if, as a beginning photographer, I didn’t know what to shoot or even, really, how to (let alone was just beinning to get some chops down in print production in the darkroom), there was always something happening.
Marvin was a guy I had met at an inti-war demonstration in Lincoln Park earlier in the year. He called me and informed me he was part of a group that was going to do a demonstration at the Midwest Regional office of the B.I.A. (Bureau of Indian Offices). He asked if I could come down and make some photographs.
March 23, 1970: Activists in Chicago staged a massive sit-in alongside protests at five other BIA regional offices across the country to demand that the federal government provide services to Natives living off reservations. These localized Chicago demonstrations paved the way for larger actions, including the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties which culminated in the takeover of the national BIA headquarters in Washington, D.C
Specifically, he said, “… I think all hell’s gonnna break out and it would be great to have some pictures.”
I pondered that. Did I want to be in the middle of a breakout of hell?

CHICAGO INDIAN VILLAGE

Carole Warrington and her Menominees. Chicago, 1970 by Bruce Berman

On May 5, 1970, a group of American Indians set up an encampment behind Wrigley Field. Led by Indian activist Mike Chosa, and Menominee Carol Warrington, the Chicago Indian Village (CIV) protested against inadequate housing and social services for Chicago’s 15,000 American Indians. The occupation of Wrigley Field’s parking lot began with CIV’s when a Ms. Warrington was evicted from her Wrigleyville apartment (she refused to pay the rent claiming the apartment was substandard and that the City Housing Authority was not inspecting it and forcing slum landlords to bring it up to code). This eviction led the group to a two-month encampment at a Wrigley Field parking lot.The following summer, Chosa and Worthington led a group of fifty men, women, and children in a two-week occupation of an abandoned parcel of government land, a former Nike missile base, at Belmont Harbor. Evicted from the site, they took refuge at the Fourth Presbyterian Church.

This action was part the American Indian Movement (AIM), which is still active and is an activist group that fights for Native American rights.

DANCES WITH DOPES

CHICAGO INDIAN VILLAGE