The United States government was founded with the belief in protecting the rights and freedoms of every American citizen. The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, provides that “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Yet, for hundreds of years, the United States government and society have tormented the Native American people through treaty violations, removal policies, and attempts at assimilation. From the Trail of Tears in 1830 to the Termination Policy of 1953, the continued oppression of American Indian communities produced an atmosphere of heightened tension and gave Native peoples a reason to fight back. In 1968, Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, and Russell Means founded the American Indian Movement to address issues surrounding the Native American community and address the situation and position of Native Americans in society. Over the next few decades, the movement led to a series of radical protests, designed to raise awareness of American Indian issues and to pressure the federal government to take action on their behalf. After all the unjust and unfair policies implemented by the United States government and society, all the actions of the American Indian Movement can be justified as legitimate reactions to the democratic society of the United States which had promised to respect and protect its people and she hadn't been able to do it. Like this. By the early 1830s, "nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida." These were areas of land that American Indians and their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. However, for many white Americans…half the paper…the United States government and society. Even though their rights had not been protected, their land taken away by force and their culture not respected, the American Indian Movement still managed to protest and fight for their deserved rights in very reasonable and not extreme ways . Their land and property were unjustly taken away, but they did not steal more property in revenge. Violence was used against them, but they did not react violently. They were forced to abandon their own culture and religious beliefs and conform to those of another ethno-cultural community, but they did not impose their opinions and ideas on others. The American Indian Movement was an organization whose actions can be justified as perfectly legitimate reactions to the democratic society of the United States that had promised to respect and protect its people and had failed to do so.