Wounded Knee 1973

`

Wounded Knee 1973

A Personal Account

Stanley David Lyman
Edited by Floyd A. O’Neil, June K. Lyman, and Susan McKay
Foreword by Alvin M. Josephy Jr.

196 pages
Illus., map

Paperback

September 1993

978-0-8032-7933-9

$18.95 Add to Cart
about author bio praise table of contents media awards

About the Book

Stanley Lyman, who was the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) superintendent at the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973, gives an inside view of what happened when the American Indian Movement (AIM) activists occupied the village of Wounded Knee. Close to the action, he recorded it with unusual candor, directing his sorrow, frustration, and occasional anger to all parties involved—the Tribal Council, the Justice Department, the BIA, FBI, and AIM. His account of the besiegers and besieged reveals a well-meaning and intelligent man forced by dramatic events to reevaluate some long-cherished assumptions. It deserves to be read and studied in any attempt to understand fully Wounded Knee II.

Author Bio

Floyd A. O'Neil and Susan McKay edited Wounded Knee 1973 with the help of the author's widow, June K Lyman. Alvin Josephy, Jr., who describes this book as "a very human document of an 'odd man out' in great personal travail," is the author of Red Power: The American Indians' Fight for Freedom (Bison Book, 1985).

Praise

"Superintendent Lyman’s running account of the tense events of the siege, as he saw them, [supplies] one of the most important and hitherto missing perspectives of Wounded Knee II."—Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. in his foreword

"This book, a diary of Stanley David Lyman, tells with gripping immediacy what went on among the besiegers. . . . Wounded Knee 1973 is an important document that provides a missing perspective to what Lyman believed was a 'revolution,' pure and simple. But as he puts down his thoughts and emotions of those critical times, in which lives quite literally were in the balance, Lyman sees a government confused, poor communications, ignorance, bureaucratic ineptitude and intolerance to the extreme."—Salt Lake Tribune

"This book succeeds in sending chills through the mind of any reader who has ever endured multi-agency participation in any form. . . . Cultures clashed at Wounded Knee, and the echoes can still be heard in [these] pages."—Wilson Library Bulletin

"In a day of activist concern over the heated issues of society, this book is a timely reminder of the complexity of finding appropriate solutions."—Utah Historical Quarterly

Also of Interest

The Wild Bunch at Robbers Roost

Pearl Baker