The prominent American Indian rights activist Russell Means has died at 72. Means had a complicated and sometimes-controversial career, but he did as much as anyone to energize Indian rights activism and to bring to mainstream attention the history of violations of Indians’ rights by the United States government.

Of particular interest around these parts, he was a Libertarian (capital-L– a party member, not just someone with libertarian normative commitments) and ran against Ron Paul for the 1988 LP presidential nomination, promising a campaign that would have offered much more outreach to the left than Ron Paul’s. I’ve occasionally wondered how the libertarian movement would have been different if Means rather than Paul had been its most public face for the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Update:

See this much more substantial post from Brian Doherty at Hit & Run, including a response to my wondering.