Mark Tilsen

Mark Tilsen

Mark Tilsen is a South Dakota activist. He is the son of Ken Tilsen and Rachel Tilsen , the younger brother of David Tilsen, and the father of Nick Tilsen and Mark k. Tilsen. Married to JoAnn Tall.

He is President of Tanka Bar a buffalo snack food company.

Tilsen brothers

AIM activists

Mark Tilsen and JoAnn Tall were both members of the American Indian Movement.

Wounded Knee

From David Tilsen:

In 1973 my Dad phoned me with a request. He was getting calls about a growing number of people in Rapid City, South Dakota getting arrested and jailed. Would I drive him to Rapid City? He would sleep in the car, I would get a hotel and he would go to jail and see what was happening.

It was the third day of the occupation of Wounded Knee. The jail was full of Indians. My Dad said, “The Federal Court is never closed. Let’s wake up this magistrate and this judge, get them down here and get these people out of jail.” AIM leader Madonna Thunder Hawk, who became a life-long friend, said she never heard of Indians having lawyers before. “When Indians got arrested they went to jail.”

Our whole family became deeply involved in Wounded Knee. My mother was one of the leaders of the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee, WKLD/OC. There were close to 400 federal indictments coming out of Wounded Knee and we ended up with trials in North Dakota, Minneapolis, and Rapid City. Later, there were civil disturbances—the Government called them riots— in Custer and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, around the trials. Those were state charges. We won almost all of the federal charges, though some people who were on federal probation did go back to jail. There were some people charged with interfering with a civil disorder that were convicted, but they didn’t end up serving time.

There were treaty hearings because all of the cases, from the defense perspective, were based on the premise that treaty rights had been violated. Rather than have to argue the treaty in every trial, there was one big treaty hearing in Lincoln, Nebraska. We brought in all these historians and treaty experts like Vine Deloria. Leonard Crow Dog was there with his entourage camping in a neighborhood park. The judge ruled that while the US record with regard to Indians was terrible, it was up to Congress to rectify it. I thought it was a chickenshit decision. My younger brother Mark quit school, moved to South Dakota and never came back.

Tribal infrastructure

From David Tilsen:

After Wounded Knee, AIM had found itself in a better position on Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations to elect people to the tribal council and run people for tribal chair, but the question was what could be done to build a sustainable economy?

The first step in the development plan was to start a public radio station. My brother Mark committed himself to the project and I worked on fundraising for it. It changed everything. Every home had KILI Radio on. They did music, broadcasted tribal meetings, even did play-by- play for high school basketball. The second step was to support a college, beginning with a nursing school and then expanding. Today the Oglala Lakota College is flourishing and has some Masters’ degrees. The third step was to create the Lakota Fund to help entrepreneurs open up hotels, coffee shops, and grocery stores.

Mark and I created Direct Expressions to build funds for KILI Radio, Wounded Knee District School, and Porcupine Health Clinic.

Mark and I expanded Direct Expressions and it became our work for many years, developing into an award-winning, well-respected company. We did direct mail, broadcast advertising and political fundraising. We were part of Wellstone’s first election, which was exciting. We were hired by Prairie Island Tribe to organize the coalition against nuclear storage when NSP wanted to store nuclear waste from the power plant on the reservation.

However, it was the Native American entities—KILI Radio and the Oglala College—that kept us in business. In turn, we raised enough money for them to make them stable entities. The college’s endowment was large enough that they were able to stay open during the government shutdown when other colleges were closing. That is a source of pride. When we were ready to move on, we gave Direct Expressions to our Native American employees.

Wellstone connection

David Tilsen and Mark Tilsen's company Direct Expressions were part of Paul Wellstone’s first election.