Vernon Bellecourt, 75; fought sports teams’ use of Indian nicknames

Vernon Bellecourt, 75, a leader of the American Indian Movement who fought against the use of Indian nicknames by sports teams, died Saturday at a hospital in Minneapolis of complications from pneumonia, his family said.

Bellecourt, a member of Minnesota’s White Earth Band, was active in the ongoing campaign to free American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He was also involved as a negotiator in the group’s 1972 occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In recent years, Bellecourt had been active in the fight against American Indian nicknames for sports teams as president of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media. He was arrested in Cleveland during the 1997 World Series and again in 1998 during protests against the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, Chief Wahoo. Charges were dropped in the first case and he was never charged in the second.

Bellecourt was also active in the American Indian Movement’s work abroad, meeting with leaders such as President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi. He also recently met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to discuss Chavez’s plan for providing heating assistance to American Indian tribes.