Russell Means, 1939–2012

Born Pine Ridge, South Dakota Having helped to found the American Indian Movement in 1968, Lakota tribesperson Russell Means became the most visible leader for Native American rights during the late 1960s and 1970s, a period of heightened activism among tribal communities. A charismatic and controversial figure, Means sought to make the plight of Native Americans known by staging highly publicized demonstrations at such symbolically laden sites as Plymouth Rock, Mount Rushmore, and Alcatraz Island. In 1973, he was at the center of an armed standoff with government authorities in the reservation town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where in 1890 at least 200 Lakota men, women, and children were killed or wounded in a confrontation with the U.S. Army that spiraled into a massacre.

Working from his own Polaroid photograph of Means, Andy Warhol created this portrait as part of his American Indian series.

Courtesy National Museum of American Indian, Smithsonian Institution; #253999.000