Anna Mae Lived and Died For All of Us – Boston Indian Council (1976)

From ‘Akwesasne Notes’, Early Summer 1976

Anna Mae Lived And Died For All of Us — Will We Forget Her? Will Her Death Be For Nothing?

In its newsletter, the Boston Indian Council told of Anna Mae [Pictou Aquash’s] burial, and her life with them in Boston:

“There was the sadness and mourning for a lost friend. There was the sense of pride and honor for a woman who had given her life for the sake of her people. And there was anger — an anger of not knowing why she had to die.

“Pine Ridge is a long way from Shubenacadie. But these two reservations serve as bookends for Anna Mae’s life. She was different. She was special. At 25, Anna Mae began attending meetings to help organize an Indian Community Center. People who remember those times, the single room at 150 Tremont Street with its folding chairs and bad coffee, can still hear Anna Mae’s voice. She spoke of Indian rights of pride, and self determination. Poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, despair — these were the enemies she saw. And through her courage, she helped to give birth to an organization dedicated to combating these problems — the Boston Indian Council. It was not an easy birth. There were many years of growing pains before the BIC was to be able to stand on its own, but without women like Anna Mae, it would never have been possible.

“And yet the streets of Boston were too narrow to hold her. Within two years, Anna Mae was carrying the same message of Indian pride across the nation. She became a member of the American Indian Movement. From that moment, her life would read like the newspaper headlines which followed her: the occupation of the BIA in Washington, the siege of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, the takeover of the Alexian Brothers Monastery in Wisconsin. Along with men like Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and Clyde Bellecourt, Anna Mae helped to bring the attention of the whole world to the Indian people of this nation. It was a life filled with the glare of cameras, but also with the emptiness of long highways.

“Anna Mae travelled. She organized. She struggled against racism, intimidation, and hatred. She followed her vision, and called on other Indian people to do the same. Whatever opinion people had toward her work, one thing was sure: Anna Mae Pictou was a woman of conviction…

“Anna Mae lived and died for all of us. Now we are entrusted with her vision.

“She is no longer here to carry on the work she did so well. But we are.

“Anna Mae was a woman of courage, of dignity, and of pride. Will we forget her? Will we allow her death to be for nothing?

“There is a lonely grave [at Oglala -Akwesasne Notes] that gives us our answer.”