The stand-off centered around an arbitrary federal settlement of Pine Ridge's treaty-based claim to the gold-rich Black Hills of South Dakota, as well as allegations of federal and tribal police brutality on the Pine Ridge Reservation, along with allegations of brutality by a tribal group affilated with the government Guardians of the Oglala Nation, or GOONS. As of 2004, the Sioux nations have yet to cash the check they were offered in compensation for the Black Hills. Several encampments have been maintained at the Black Hills, including Camp Freedom, over the years since 1972, to support the Sioux claim of ownership. AIM maintained Wounded Knee residents had invited their assistance in defending their homes against official and vigilante attacks, and that the FBI then surrounded them, effectively making AIM members hostage. Several trials resulted from the confrontation, which resulted in some court-room brawls with U.S. Marshals, but few AIM members were convicted for their roles in the standoff.

Attorney Larry Levanthal, who served as council for AIM said, "The courts found that there was illegal use of the military, illegal wiretap, false testimony, bribing of witnesses, covering up of crimes, subornation of perjury, deception of the counsel and deception of the courts."

AIM has been the subject of much controversy, some of it centering around the 1977 trial of Leonard Peltier, an AIM leader with apparent involvement in the 1975 murders of two FBI agents. Many doubt that he was responsible for these murders, and Amnesty International, among others, has called for his release. (See Leonard Peltier for more information.)

Another famous AIM member was Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, for whose 1976 murder two other 1970s AIM members, John Graham and Arlo Looking Cloud, were indicted in 2003. During the decades between her murder and the indictments, popular culture often attributed her murder to the FBI, with folk singer Larry Long detailing the allegations in a song titled Anna Mae (rereleased on Run For Freedom/Sweet Thunder, Flying Fish, 1997).

During the Sandinista/Indian conflict of the mid-1980s, AIM members led by Russel Means sided with Meskito Indians opposing that country's Sandanista government. Predictably, this stance damaged some of AIM's support from left-leaning organizations in the U.S., who were then actively opposing Contra activities, which included insurgent recruitment among Nicaraguan native groups. [1]

AIM's original mission included protecting native people from police abuse, using CB radios and police scanners to get to alleged crime scenes involving native people before or as police arrived, for the purpose of documenting or preventing police brutality. AIM Patrols still work the streets of Minneapolis.

AIM still exists, albeit as a sometimes disconnected network of independant chapters. AIM has been active in opposing the use of native carricatures as mascots for sporting events, organizing protests at World Series and Super Bowl games including those involving the Atlanta Braves and Washington Redskins. A website may be found at http://www.aimovement.org/. The site states AIM does not have a membership base and that each of its affiliate organizations are independant. Fractures in the former AIM leadership have resulted in mutual rhetorical attacks, with Russel Means, now based in the southwest, making allegations in book against Minneapolic AIM leaders Clyde and Vernon Bellecourte.