Stephanie Autumn was a college freshman in Los Angeles when she and several other Native Americans joined the call of Oglala Lakota people in February 1973 to help occupy Wounded Knee, S.D., in a stand for their sovereign rights.
The daughter of a white mother and Hopi father, Autumn grew up in foster homes half her life and was trying to reconnect to her roots as an Indigenous woman.
Upon reaching Wounded Knee, she said, she felt a sense of family she never had. She volunteered at the security desk and assisted with radio communications from the bunkers where Native people engaged in daily firefights with federal authorities surrounding the town.
Autumn, who now lives in Woodbury, and other Indigenous people from Minnesota and across the nation are returning to Wounded Knee to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the occupation. The 71-day standoff with federal agents — which Minnesotans helped lead — brought international attention to the American Indian Movement, also known as AIM.
