As American Indian leader Clyde Bellecourt was dying, Lydia Caros sent him a card expressing how lucky he was to look back on a life that made such a difference.
Bellecourt stood up for her when she was fired in 2002 as medical director at the Indian Health Board in Minneapolis for supporting employees whom she claimed were mistreated. He led demonstrations demanding that she and two doctors who lost their jobs for backing her be rehired. Once while holding a community meeting of more than 300 people, Bellecourt led a chant of "We love you, Dr. Caros," a moment that she considers a highlight of her life.
Then Bellecourt and Caros helped found the Native American Community Clinic in 2003 . He believed in confrontational politics to bring change, and, she added good-humoredly, "was always a combination of a pain in the neck and a joy for the city."
As Bellecourt is buried Saturday on White Earth Indian Reservation, where he was born and raised before moving to Minneapolis and radically transforming opportunities for generations of American Indian people, his legacy is drawing fond remembrances from across Minnesota and the nation. He died of cancer Tuesday at age 85.
Bellecourt is best known as a founding leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1968. He organized community patrols to combat police brutality, led a march to Washington, D.C., in 1972 called the Trail of Broken Treaties, and staged a 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, S.D., the following year to bring attention to corruption and injustice.
Friend Michael Friedman heard Bellecourt repeatedly say that people who heard about AIM wanted to talk only about those high-profile uprisings of the 1970s, but he was proud of building many organizations promoting community self-sufficiency.
Bellecourt founded the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis to represent not just American Indians, but also Black clients and other people of color. He also helped start a job training center, Heart of the Earth Survival School, the Women of Nations Eagle Nest Shelter and other institutions.
"There's a significant sense in his legacy that it's not just about protesting against something else – it's about what a community can build in working together and how what they build can have a lasting effect across generations," said Friedman, the former longtime executive director of the Legal Rights Center.
Bill Means, who worked closely with Bellecourt for 30 years at AIM, described him as one of the best community organizers in America.
"He stood out because he had a booming voice that couldn't be ignored, and so many times he used to break through the doors of prejudice and racism and challenge people and institutions to include Indian people."
Hundreds paid their respects to Bellecourt on Thursday night, gathering at East Phillips Park Cultural and Community Center for traditional Midewiwin funeral rites. Friends and dignitaries shared stories of his relentless fight for American Indians' civil rights – and the rights of all people.
Joe Hobot said Bellecourt exemplified the old saying of AIM leadership: "anytime, any place, anywhere." Whether it was protesting over the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock or Enbridge Line 3 in Hubbard County, Bellecourt was always there, he said.
"The fact that our community is able to thrive and survive and the network of nonprofits that support our community is all because of the work that he did," said Hobot, president and CEO of American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center, which Bellecourt founded. "And so it's incumbent upon us to honor his legacy by working extra hard."
Black civil rights leader Spike Moss was a teenager in 1966 when he met Bellecourt and learned about activism from him. Together, they fought police violence in both communities.
The pair also traveled across the nation to protest the Washington Redskins' name, with Bellecourt organizing massive demonstrations denouncing it as a racist slur. The football team finally dropped the name in 2020.
"He taught me what it was to be brave, to be bold, to be unafraid to fight for what you want," Moss said.
With his friend Larry Long, Bellecourt wrote a song calling out the NFL team and would sing it at protests outside football stadiums. During Thursday night's ceremony, Long thought back to how Bellecourt's advocacy led to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, which was now allowing for his loved ones to openly have the traditional Midewiwin.
"That's what I was really struck by," he said, "was the fact that all those things that Clyde fought for at the end of his life, they were being honored right there at his wake."
