Stand With Crowdog
1976
Artist
Designer Unknown
DIMENSIONS
17 x 11 in. (43.2 x 27.9 cm)
OBJECT NUMBER
PH.7618
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
United States
CREDIT LINE
Poster House Permanent Collection
KEYWORDS
Native American, Political, Wisconsin

This poster honors Leonard Crow Dog (1942–2021), the Lakota medicine man whose spiritual leadership recast the focus of the American Indian Movement (AIM) from urban activism into sacred resistance. When AIM founder Dennis Banks sought a spiritual leader in 1970, he found Crow Dog already organizing on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, practicing traditional medicine and leading Sun Dance ceremonies to keep Lakota traditions alive. During the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation, Crow Dog provided spiritual guidance to protesters who held the site for 71 days. His vision—that sovereignty meant cultural survival, not just political autonomy—shaped the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Act, granting tribes (among other rights), the ability to decide how their health and education programs would be run within their communities. In 1975, in response to his role at Wounded Knee, the U.S. government sent more than 100 law-enforcement personnel to Crow Dog’s home under the pretense of looking for Leonard Peltier (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa), an Indigenous activist who was suspected of killing two FBI agents. Taken into custody as a presumed accomplice, Crow Dog was subsequently imprisoned at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas and put in solitary confinement for two weeks. After almost two years of incarceration, international pressure, letters, and petitions secured his release. The National Council of Churches (the largest pan-Christian group in the United States) raised $150,000 for his defense, with attorney Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Lakota), arguing that prosecuting a medicine man violated religious freedom. Here, a geometric Native design is surrounded by words referencing kinship—including son, brother, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great spirit, great mystery, sky, grandmother, mother, sister, daughter, and great-grandmother earth. This visual prayer positions Crow Dog at the center of a cosmic family extending from earth to sky and asserting that his imprisonment violates not just human law but also sacred relationships. This poster merges political solidarity and spiritual practice, indicating that, especially for Indigenous activists, the two are inherently linked. Rather than demanding signatures or donations, it invites supporters to participate in collective prayer, aligning themselves with traditional ceremonial times: sunrise, noon, and sunset.

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