Dick Bancroft began photographing American Indians in 1971, and became one of the key visual documentarians of the American Indian Movement (AIM), which began as a street patrol against police brutality in Minneapolis and gained global press attention and popularity in the 1970s.
Bancroft, who lives in Sunfish Lake and is a board member of Minnesota Jewish Media, LLC, the parent company of the American Jewish World, has published a collection of his photographs of AIM activities, We Are Still Here: A Photographic History of the American Indian Movement (Borealis Books). The attractive, large-format volume includes informative text by Laura Waterman Wittstock. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum wrote the foreword.
An exhibit of Bancroft’s photos, I’m Not Your Indian Anymore, will be on display at All My Relations Gallery, 1414 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis, and an opening reception will take place 6 p.m. Friday, May 10. Also, photos from We Are Still Here will be displayed at Mill City Museum, 704 S. 2nd St., Minneapolis, through Sept. 1. An opening reception for the exhibit will be held 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, May 16.
I’m excited about seeing Dick Bancroft tomorrow night, May 10th, at the opening of the exhibit of photos and the book “We Are Still Here”. I even got an invitation to the event from Clyde Bellecourt as he was working the crowd at the May Day event in Powderhorn Park last Sunday.
Come on out, buy a book and meet Mr. Bancroft. Yikes, he would cringe at that remark.