This image shows (from left) Roberto Maestas, Bernie Whitebear, Jim Robideau, and Larry Gossett speaking at a rally on the anniversary of the occupation of Wounded Knee by protesters the previous year. Held at El Centro de la Raza in Seattle, the event was a show of solidarity with the American Indian Movement (AIM). The rally protested the federal government’s actions again the AIM, and rally organizers also described how suffering due to economic crisis at that time fell especially harshly on marginalized racial groups and poor people.

All four men pictured were activists in the minority rights movement of the late 1960s-70s. Roberto Maestas was the founder and director of El Centro de la Raza; Bernie Whitebear founded the Seattle Indian Health Board and the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation; Larry Gossett was active in Seattle’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and co-founded the University of Washington Black Student Union; and Jim Robideau (Dakota) was active in the American Indian Movement.

Caption information source: “Minority Majority in Crises,” by Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 28th, 1974, page 10.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.