Means took fight from Wounded Knee to ND's Fighting Sioux arena

• Protest of Fighting Sioux mascot

In this February 2001 file photo, a black wooden coffin lays at the feet of Russell Means as he stands with his back to construction at the Ralph Engelstad Arena where protesters hung dead flowers and colored cloth on the construction site work fence protesting the UND nickname. (Forum Communications Co. photo)

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GRAND FORKS, N.D. — The timing was coincidental, but Russell Means would have appreciated it: On the day he died, workers began removing the prominent “Home of the Fighting Sioux” signs from Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks.

A leader of the American Indian Movement who helped stage the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, Means died Monday at his ranch in Porcupine on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

He was 72.

A striking and charismatic figure who favored buckskin and leather-tied braids that reached to mid-thigh, he appeared in 10 movies, including as the title character in “Last of the Mohicans.”

But he first gained notoriety through protest, and in 2001 he led a rally at the REA construction site against the use of Indian names and symbols by sports teams.

“It’s no longer acceptable for the Washington Redskins, it’s no longer acceptable for the Cleveland Indians, and it’s no longer acceptable for the Fighting Sioux” to use nicknames, logos and mascots derived from American Indian names and imagery, Means said.

He also spoke against the nickname on ESPN in 2009.

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