Perry Ray Robinson, a 35-year-old Black civil rights activist from Alabama, disappeared after attending the Wounded Knee occupation on the Pine Ridge Reservation in April 1973. A follower of Martin Luther King Jr., he had participated in the 1963 March on Washington and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign. Robinson arrived at Wounded Knee in April 1973 and was last seen or heard from after April 25, 1973. He had been accompanied to the occupation by a woman from Alabama who later left and returned home.

Accounts describe harsh conditions inside the occupied area, including food shortages and frequent gunfire, and say Robinson struggled with the militant environment. Suspicions that he might be a federal informant circulated among some American Indian Movement members. Over the years conflicting stories said he was shot in the leg and walked away or that he was killed. In 2014 the FBI confirmed he had been killed and buried on the reservation in April 1973, citing cooperating witnesses who alleged Robinson was tortured and murdered; the US Attorney’s Office declined prosecution for lack of evidence. His body has never been found and no one has been arrested or charged.

Did anyone who knew Perry or who was at Wounded Knee in April 1973 ever hear details that could help locate his remains or identify those involved?