"After a half-century of uncertainty, all Cheryl Buswell-Robinson wants is the body of her husband, Perry Ray Robinson, to be returned. In March 1973, Robinson called home to Alabama from a conference in Taos, New Mexico, to tell his wife he planned to join the American Indian Movement's takeover of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation where tribal members were protesting then-tribal president Dick Wilson."
"Being the 1970s, Buswell-Robinson didn't hear back from her husband for a while, and there wasn't an easy way to communicate with little access to landlines in an occupied space under near constant FBI surveillance. So that fall, when a caravan from Wounded Knee of Black civil rights activists pulled into the driveway of the Robinson farm in Alabama, Buswell-Robinson expected her husband to be with them. He wasn't."
"At first, Buswell-Robinson thought her husband may have been arrested by the FBI during the occupation, but soon she discovered in South Dakota the rumor was Robinson was killed in a bunker in Wounded Knee and buried somewhere nearby. When closing its investigation into Robinson's disappearance in 2014, the FBI confirmed to the family that Robinson was killed in Wounded Knee and buried in an unknown grave, she said."
Cheryl Buswell-Robinson seeks the remains of husband Perry Ray Robinson, who disappeared after joining the 1973 American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee. Robinson left a conference in Taos to join the takeover protesting tribal president Dick Wilson and failed to return home to Alabama. Communication during the occupation was limited and he did not make contact. Rumors in South Dakota said he was killed in a bunker and buried nearby. The FBI closed its investigation in 2014 and informed the family that Robinson was killed at Wounded Knee and buried in an unknown grave. Buswell-Robinson continues to pursue the return of his body.
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