Means was active in international issues of indigenous peoples, including working with groups in Central and South America and with the United Nations for recognition of their rights.

Beginning an acting career in 1992, he appeared on numerous television series and in several films, including The Last of the Mohicans, Pocahontas, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

[2] In 1942, the Means family resettled in the San Francisco Bay Area, seeking to escape the poverty and problems of the reservation.

[6] In his 1995 autobiography, Means recounted a harsh childhood; his father was alcoholic and he himself fell into years of "truancy, crime and drugs" before finding purpose in the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[4] His father died in 1967 and, in his twenties, Means lived in several Indian reservations throughout the United States while searching for work.

After they refused to examine him for several days, Means was finally diagnosed with a concussion due to a presumed fight in a saloon.

In 1970, Means was appointed AIM's first national director, and the organization began a period of increasing protests and activism.

[2] In November 1972, he participated in AIM's occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) headquarters in Washington, D.C., to protest abuses.

[2] In 1973, Dennis Banks and Carter Camp led AIM's occupation of Wounded Knee, which became the group's best-known action.

The armed standoff of more than 300 Lakota and AIM activists with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and state law enforcement lasted for 71 days.

In 1974, Means resigned from AIM to run for the presidency of his native Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) against the incumbent Richard Wilson.

[9] In the 1980s, AIM divided into several competing factions, in part over differences among members regarding support for the indigenous peoples in Nicaragua.

[10] Some AIM members supported the Sandinistas of the national government, although they had forced removal of thousands of Miskito from their traditional territory.

The "AIM Grand Governing Council" noted there were many open issues and legislation regarding Native Americans for which they were continuing to work.

[12] In 1993, the organization divided officially into two main factions: "AIM Grand Governing Council", based in Minnesota, which copyrighted the name "American Indian movement"; and American Indian Movement Confederation of Autonomous Chapters, based in Colorado and allied with Means and Ward Churchill.

It had been under investigation both by the Denver police, as Aquash had been kidnapped from there, and by the FBI, as she had been taken across state lines and killed on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

[14] Means and Branscombe accused three indigenous people: Arlo Looking Cloud, Theda Nelson Clarke and John Graham, of having been directly involved in the kidnapping and murder of Aquash.

[10] Following the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in September 2007, a group of American Indian activists presented a letter to the U.S. State Department, indicating they were withdrawing from all treaties with the U.S. Government on December 20.

[22][23] Means said that his group does not "represent collaborators, the Vichy Indians and those tribal governments set up by the United States of America".

[24] On January 8, 2008, tribal leaders in the northern Great Plains, Rodney Bordeaux of the 25,000-member Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and Joseph Brings Plenty of the 8,500-member Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said that Means and the group of his fellow activists would not speak for their members or for any elected Lakota tribal government.

He appeared in Natural Born Killers (1994), as Jim Thorpe in Windrunner (1994),[28] as Sitting Bull in Buffalo Girls (1995), and had a cameo in the miniseries Into the West (2005).

Means co-starred in Rez Bomb from director Steven Lewis Simpson, the first feature he acted in on his native Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Means was also a prominent contributor to Steven Lewis Simpson's feature documentary about Pine Ridge Indian Reservations, A Thunder-Being Nation.

He recounted his own family's problems: his alcoholic father, and his own "fall into truancy, crime and drugs" before he discovered the American Indian Movement.

"[4] In another review, writer Mari Wadsworth of the Tucson Weekly wrote: "Critical readers do well to remain skeptical of any individual, however charismatic, who claims to be the voice of authority and authenticity for any population, let alone one as diverse as the native tribes of the Americas.

But whatever conclusions one makes of Means' actions and intentions, his unremitting presence and undaunted outspokenness opened a dialogue that changed the course of American history.

[38] In 2016 the artist Magneto Dayo and The Lakota Medicine Men did a tribute song dedicated to Russell Means and Richard Oakes called "The Journey" on the album Royalty of the UnderWorld.

As "a grandfather with twenty-two grandchildren", Russell Means divided his time "between Chinle, Navajo Nation, Arizona, and Porcupine, South Dakota.

"[48] ABC News said Means "spent a lifetime as a modern American Indian warrior ... , railed against broken treaties, fought for the return of stolen land and even took up arms against the federal government ... , called national attention to the plight of impoverished tribes and often lamented the waning of Indian culture.