Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means

Where White Men Fear to Tread tells the absorbing story of the accountant-turned-Indian activist who burst onto the national scene when he led a seventy-one-day armed takeover of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973.

Ever since, Means has done everything possible to dramatize the Indian wish for self-determination, from storming Mount Rushmore, to seizing Plymouth Rock, to fighting for the rights of indigenous Indian tribes in Central America, to running for President on the Libertarian ticket in 1988. The autobiography recounts Means's remarkable story—his incarcerations in prison, the thirteen assassination attempts on his life, his intellectual transformation to an outlaw personality, his spiritual awakening, and his most recent reincarnation as a Hollywood movie star in The Last of the Mohicans and Pocahontas.

Told against a larger historical background, Means's book retells the tragic quest of Indians to maintain their cultural identity in the face of unremitting white assimilation. We come away from Where White Men Fear to Tread knowing that Means is one of the bravest patriots in American history—a man in the tradition of Patrick Henry, Nat Turner, John Brown, Sitting Bull, and Abraham Lincoln, for these men are Means's true historical ancestors. Long awaited, this autobiography takes its place among the enduring works of America's greatest political and social leaders. In the tradition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Where White Men Fear to Tread is one of the most socially illuminating and provocative works to come along in many years.