On a cold night in February 1973, a caravan rolled through the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

The cars were packed with 200 Indians, men and women, local Oglala Lakota, and members of the urban militant group, the American Indian Movement.

They headed toward the hallowed ground wounded knee,

the site of the last massacre of the Indian Wars.

Going into wounded knee that night,

when it was dark and scary,

we were clinging to our weapons tightly.

It was a full moon, and we knew that a battle was going to come. I was sitting there thinking of some of these young men that are around me,

am I committing them to die.

I was ready to do whatever it takes for change.

I didn't care.

I had children, and for them, I figured I could make a stand here.

They were up to no good.

I mean, why would they be traveling in a caravan with all these weapons

and all these Molotov cocktails

if they weren't going to engage in some kind of destructive activity?

By the 1970s, native people, once masters of the continent, had become invisible, consigned to the margins of American life.

Their anger and frustration would explode in wounded knee.

We were about to be obliterated culturally.

Our spiritual way of life, our entire way of life,

was about to be stamped out.

And this was a rebirth of our dignity and self-pride.

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