This image shows Steve Robideau (Chippewa) who organized a peaceful march of about 300 people from the Indian Center to the federal courthouse in Seattle, in support of protesters who were occupying Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Steve’s brothers Jim and Ben were taking part in the occupation of Wounded Knee.

The Wounded Knee occupation started as a protest against the corrupt and increasingly authoritarian rule of Richard Wilson, Tribal Chairman of the Oglala Lakota. The occupation was on the site of the 1890 massacre of Lakota by the US Army. The occupation lasted for more than 70 days, and many Indigenous people from across the US traveled to Wounded Knee to take part.

Caption information source: “’Wounded Knee’ march in Seattle,” by Hilda Bryant, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 22, 1973, page 3.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.