MUSKOGEE, Okla. – There’s a man named Dennis Banks walking across the country right now, to raise awareness for diabetes. He has crossed the United States seven times in the course of his life.
This same man helped found the American Indian Movement in 1968. In 1973, he led a group of Native Americans into Wounded Knee, South Dakota and occupied the town as a form of protest. In 1985, he turned himself in for his actions and spent 18 months in prison.
He did these things and more so that Native Americans would have the opportunities they enjoy today.
Let’s not mince words: the man is a hero, and here I was, a fumbling student journalist sitting with him in the Palmer Center snack bar.
I think we could safely say I was terrified.
Despite my reservations, Mr. Banks provided both a friendly smile and advice I’ll never forget.
I asked him, after all the things he’s done and been through, what advice he might have for the modern Native American student.
“Retention,” he said, simply. “Cultural retention.”
Mr. Banks talked about the importance of a Native student’s culture as they moved through school and into careers—how those careers would be “enhanced’ when combined with a sense of cultural identity.
“You don’t want to be a number,” he told me. “You don’t want to graduate as a number.”
He said he even gave this advice to prisoners; he told people going into prison not to lose their identity upon release.
Prisoners. I was a college student, with the world waiting on me to show up, and there were prisoners more grounded in their heritage than I was.
Mr. Banks opened up my eyes to how much my culture served as a ground to stand on, to support myself through a time in my life (and, I would imagine, many students’ lives) where the phrase “I don’t know what to do” isn’t just common, it’s a slogan. A chant.
He talked about changing policy, too: changing the status quo where there was a wrong to be righted. He talked about being cornered, and fighting back—not chasing someone down, or being aggressive, but fighting when against the wall.
What shocked me was that this same peaceful determination which fueled his current cross-country trip had fueled the occupation of Wounded Knee. The man didn’t fight for the sake of fighting; he works for the betterment of his people.
He also talked about traveling the United States on foot, and how every time the sun came up you were in a different place. He said the hardest part was simply deciding to do it—to take that first step on the journey.
He even suggested I think about doing it.
After we spoke, Mr. Banks gathered his group, who had been eating lunch in the snack bar. He advised them to remember their visit to Bacone, because, he said, “today won’t ever happen again.”
Today won’t ever happen again, huh?
I guess I have a trip to plan.
(Chesley Oxendine is a journalism student at Bacone College.)