Edward benton banai biography of martin
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Thank you so much! They are our teachers, our healers, our inspirations, and one of the greatest has walked on.
Claiming more then 40 years of working in Indian education, Benton said he first started school at the age of 9 at local reservation facilities, trading suspensions and jokes about the Sisters, for several transfers and eventual off-reservation deportation to Hayward area schools.
“Our whole Indian way of life came back because of him. He was known as a dedicated partisan Democrat with a ruthless penchant to tease and joked about both the political and social order of everything, admonishing politicians, religious leaders and educators alike for their lack of genuine knowledge of all things Native.
Benton’s speaking presence can be found in audio and video files at Youtube and other online web resources.
DeMain, is a former president of the Native American Journalists Association.
His roots in the group often got overshadowed by more powerful personalities in the movement, including Russell Means, Dennis Banks and John Trudell, said Akim Reinhardt, a history professor at Towson University in Maryland.
“It's a shame, because clearly when we listen to the people who were there, they all mention him," said Reinhardt, who has written broadly about the movement.
Lisa Bellanger, executive director of the National American Indian Movement and Benton-Banai's former assistant, said he was instrumental in the group's work using treaties to protect the rights of Indigenous people.
It reads in part:
“Today we mourn the passing of a great knowledge keeper and spiritual leader, Dr. Eddie Benton-Banai, Bawdwaywidun from Lac Court Orielles Band of Ojibways in Wisconsin and a relative from the Fish Clan,” stated Chief Any Rickard.
“Eddie was a leader in the early days in advancing Anishinaabe-controlled education and cultural-based education based on Anishinaabe philosophy and our sacred prophecies.
Eddie led the effort in revitalizing our traditional governance institutions by planning and organizing the historic gatherings here in Garden River First Nation in 1992 and 2007 by rekindling the sacred fire of the Three Fires Confederacy.
If just 1% of our global audience made a donation of any amount, it would cover our costs for 2026. Members had cameras, asked police for badge numbers and monitored radio scanner traffic for mention of anyone who they might recognize as Indigenous to ensure their rights weren't being violated — similar to what the Black Panthers were doing at the time, said Kent Blansett, an associate professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Kansas who has written about the movement.
The group called out instances of cultural appropriation, provided job training, sought to improve housing and education for Indigenous people, provided legal assistance, spotlighted environmental injustice and questioned government policies that were seen as anti-Indigenous.
“Anything they could find that they could insert a Native presence and voice, they were there to do,” said Blansett, a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee and Potawatomi descendant.
At times, the American Indian Movement's tactics were militant, which led to splintering in the group.
Here are two links:
Prophesies, Mining and Water
The History of the Honor The Earth Powwow
Skabewis is the Ojibwe spiritual name for Paul DeMain, similar to the name that helpers in the Midewin Lodge are named too or entitled to carry. He started the Red School, an American Indian school in Minneapolis and St.
Paul during the 1970s.
“Eddie was a mentor and friend to me and countless others. Bawdwaywidun taught many of us how to pray, sing, fast, laugh, cry, listen, and speak our language,” Martin continued.
Born and raised on the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian reservation in Wisconsin, Benton- Banai was incarcerated in his early adult life after he was convicted of manslaughter.
“Eddie ended up behind bars for a crime that a white man wouldn”™t even have been tried for.
In one of its most well-known actions, the group took over Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1973 to protest U.S. and tribal governments. Beyond his role as a spiritual leader, Benton-Banai was an educator and author, who sought to preserve Native culture and spirituality.
“There are people who inspire us, who help us reach the spaces where we are able to be our best selves, who strengthen us to protect what our ancestors wanted for us.
But not all ceremonies and knowledge in the lodge was ever open to the public, surviving in part because of Benton, who sheltered and nourished the language, the prayers, the songs, the sequences, the hope and the responsibilities, to the earth, the body, soul and spirit. His namesake, or wa’aa, was John Mink, the man who gave him his Ojibwe name, and was known as Zhooniyageeshig, or Silver Streaking in the Sky, a name bestowed and reflecting a spiritual relationship with the heavens.
Benton worked as a Skabewis or a Messenger/Helper and mentor to the late John Stone, James “Pipe” Mustache, William Webster and Archy Mosay.
His given English name was Edward Joseph Benton, born in a woodland wigwam on the shores of Round Lake on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Reservation near Hayward, Wisconsin, on March 4, 1931, according to the family obituary. He later died of a brain hemorrhage, and Eddie was convicted of manslaughter,” writes AIM co-founder Clyde Bellecourt in his autobiography “The Thunder before the Storm.”
After being released from prison, Bellecourt and Benton- Banai, along with Dennis Banks, started the American Indian Movement to stop police brutality in the Minneapolis-St.
For the next four days, I am going to observe a spiritual sacred fire and pray that he serve as messenger to bring our prayers with him,” Sault Ste. Marie Tribal Chairperson Aaron Payment wrote on his Facebook page.
Benton-Banai is also known for authoring “The Mishomis Book: The Voice of the Ojibway” that draws from the teachings of tribal elders that educate the youth about Ojibway creation stories and legends.
The following statement was issued today by Garden River First Nation.