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Paperback
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Format: Bargain Price
In 1976 the body of Anna Mae Aquash, an American Indian luminary, was found frozen in the Badlands of South Dakota — or so the FBI said. After a suspicious autopsy and a rushed burial, friends had Aquash exhumed and found a .32-caliber bullet in her skull. Using this scandal as a point of departure, The Unquiet Grave opens a tunnel into the dark side of the FBI and its subversion of American Indian activists. But the book also discovers things the Indians would prefer to keep buried. What unfolds is a sinuous tale of conspiracy, murder, and cover-up that stretches from the plains of South Dakota to the polished corridors of Washington, D.C. First-time author Steve Hendricks sued the FBI over several years to pry out thousands of unseen documents about the events. His work was supported by the prestigious Fund for Investigative Journalism. Hendricks, who has freelanced for The Nation, Boston Globe, Orion, and public radio, is one of those rare reporters whose investigative tenacity is accompanied by grace with the written word.
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| flawed but significant |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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There are many unforgivable flaws in this book, such as the author's clumsy attempt to expose a dedicated AIM activist as an FBI informant and his casual intution that Leonard Peltier is guilty and that the author would not find him personable after serving 33 years on the basis of a farcical legal proceeding that has never been retried. An astute editor would have corrected these errors. Yet I find this book is significant in accentuating the need for a comprehensive investigation of the crimes against the people of Pine Ridge and AIM. This could follow the model of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in which all who testify would be granted immunity for all actions to which they confess. Free Leonard Peltier, Arlo Looking Clound, and the consciences and legal concerns of federal agents and informants willing to testify. This book surely raises questions about the true reponsibility for the killing of Anna Mae Aquash, which the FBI dared not investigate until it was certain that it could be another tool for the descrediting of AIM and Leonard Peltier, and the snuffing out of hope for future generations of Native peoples. We need to understand the history of Pine Ridge to understand the implications of federal Indian policy and the grim realities of contemporary indigenous life.
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| Important update of the history |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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A number of important books have examined the role of AIM in awakening the American Indian to the plight they have been subjected to. These include Russel Means Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means and Dennis Banks Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks And The Rise Of The American Indian Movement. While the movie Incident at Oglala - The Leonard Peltier Story has added to the story, this very insightful story examines the role of the FBI on the American Indian reservations, especially Pine RIdge and others in the Mid West. It deals extensively with the mysterious 1976 death of Anne May Aqash. This is a heavy book that makes the FBI out to be a truly negative influence and examines the continuing negative role of the U.S federal government vis-a-vis the reservations.
Thoguht provoking and important.
Seth J. Frantzman
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| Indian Country |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Usually works with this amount of research end up a boring read and destined for the bottom of the book pile. Not so with Unquiet Grave. Good thing I'm retired as I was glued to Steve's book for three days. Whether you are from this part of Indian country or elsewhere, you will find this book a remarkable storytelling backed by solid documentation and a balanced critique of all the players from that era. We complain about journalists who concoct a regurgitated version of the news. This author was not afraid to wade knee deep in a significant analysis of historical events that shaped American Indian civil rights. What disturbs me here is that the author or any citizen for that matter must seek legal action to obtain records from OUR government that are clearly records open to the public through the Freedom of Information Act. That should bother us all.
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| We need the whole story and more facts because it affected all our lives.The Federal injustice continues to this day. |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Steve Hendricks did the best job of any in documenting what happened during this period of time between American Indian people and no-Indian people in one document.
I was deeply committed and involved within the Indian communities because for some strange reason yet unknown to me I have been very close to Indian people since my youth.
I suffered and experienced the daily abject poverty with them in their homes and could not realize why they could never share what most of the people called the American Dream. I knew part of the answer was almost a
total culture of poverty rather than the Indian cultures I had learned about in school.Multi-generational abuse,physical,sexual,and substance abuse,was the direct cause of much dysfunctional behavior I witnessed.I decided early in my life and to do whatever I could do to help change whatever I could in my lifetime that would stop this injustice. I would give my own life to change that.
I always deplored most organizational efforts to accomplish anything however I joined the Michigan Chapter of the Great Lakes Indian Youth Alliance and the American Indian Movement. The reason why I joined is because for the first time in my life I could feel the surge of self respect,self actualization and spirituality within these organizations,and the individuals and Indian Communities involved at that time.It was a refreshing healing wind of change like you feel after a thunderstorm.
I actually thought the young brilliant Indian Warriors were street/woods wise and spiritual enough to avoid the pitfalls of other dominant culture civil and equal rights organizations but ultimately as far as I am concerned the movement became more and more corrupt exactly like the enemy as it matured.
Individual's like Russell Means,Dennis Banks,Ed McGaa,Floyd Westerman and others less visible continued to self actualize and work hard to individually accomplish the original goals of their and our youth in rather unusual ways after AIM died. I know that each one is committed to do what they can do to improve the lives of their families,extended families,and Indian Nations. Sometime being human they fall short of our and even their expectations. They do what they can as Warrior in spite of almost total overwhelming repression by the United States Government and the American society. However humanly flawed they remain in my mind truly contemporary Warriors of this century.
I also feel Steve Hendricks and many others are doing their best to bring out the truth and documentation of constitutional and personal injustices of those days.I expect other individuals with information to come forth with their knowledge and writing because our society is even much farther away from the truth and principals that this Country was founded on today.
As far as I am concerned whoever killed the active committed lives of the Freedom Fighters,Ray Robinson,Anna Mae Aquash, Neogeshick Aquash the FBI Agents, and the others made a serious mestake and destroyed the purity, beauty,and Sacred Place of the Movement. The murderer or murderers who called for the hit on the precious Warrior Anna Mae Aquash in that instant killed AIM with the same bullet. They will pay for that decision deep within their soul.
I was pleased to see a that the Law Library at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law purchased the copy of The Unquiet Grave I am reading for their students.
It is my hope and prayer that the youth of today will read everything they can get their hands on work, and commit to make justice a reality in their lifetimes.
As long as this abuse, poverty, and injustice remains in our society no one will be free. Until the truth is known we will all be in a "unquiet grave" just waiting for the next shovel of dirt.
If you want to broaden your knowledge,be alive,and aware at least read this book and those that will be forthcoming.
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| don't bother |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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How this tome ever got past the editors and into print I will never know. What is the author trying to say? It is never clear. The first part of the book seemingly is about, among many, many, many other things (way too many if you ask me), the murder of Annie Mae Aquash - and great detail is included about the circumstances surrounding the discovery of her death. Abruptly at some point in the 2nd part of the book, we find ourselves at the trial of one of three people accused of her murder (none of whom were ever mentioned in part one, and, as to whom there is virtually no biographical detail included). At the same time, the book includes voluminous biographical detail and digression about many, many, many other individuals, for no particular reason it seems. I finished the book because I wanted to see if the author was going to bring this tangled mass of trivial and unimportant details together in some coherent way, but alas, all I got for the effort was high blood pressure. Among the book's many other flaws are these: the author reports on at least one trial, but seemingly has no grasp of trial tactics or evidentiary rules - he chastises lawyers for not bringing up details that (a) would have been irrelevant; and (2) would have been inadmissible; the author too often says things like "but we will never know . . . " about things that are perfecty checkable, things he could have fact-checked if he had chosen to; and, the author seems to believe in a big conspiracy or two that must explain all of the loose ends he leaves, but he never explains what those conspiracies were about and who was in them. Has he ever heard of topic sentences? I am astounded to read the other positive reviews posted here about this book. I consider it to have been an utter waste of my time, and a disservice to the topics he attempted to cover.
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