Political activist Means to look at state of democracy in America

Political activist
Russell Means will discuss how Americans are being taken
advantage of by the government through its political, economic
and educational policies at an April 20 campus lecture.

Means, an actor
and producer, will talk about “How America Has Become
One Huge Indian Reservation” at 4 p.m. in the Kyle
Morrow Room of Fondren Library. A signing of Means’
autobiography will follow the lecture.

“It’s
to make Americans understand that they are not living in
a democracy — that they are a colonized people, no
different than those in Chile, Guatemala or anywhere else
where people are taken advantage of by the government,”
he said of his upcoming speech.

He also will
recount the contributions American Indians have made to
the United States and give a current perspective of the
treatment of the American government towards its people.

In 1970, Means
became the first national director of the American Indian
Movement and during the next three years led protests and
takeovers at Mount Rushmore, Plymouth Rock and Wounded Knee.
A self-proclaimed visionary, he has devoted the past three
decades to acting, singing, painting and writing about the
plight of American Indians. He lives in Santa Fe, N.M.,
and on his reservation in Porcupine, S.D.