In Seattle, Peltier became involved in a variety of causes championing Native American civil rights.[1] In the early 1970s, he learned about the factional tensions at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota between supporters of Richard Wilson, elected tribal chairman in 1972, and traditionalist members of the Lakota tribe.[20] It was Dennis Banks who first invited Leonard Peltier to join AIM.[22] Consequently, Peltier became an official member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1972, which was founded by urban Indians in Minneapolis in 1968, at a time of rising Indian activism for civil rights.[3]