Black Elk speaks is the story of Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1853 - 1950) and his people during the momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century. Black Elk grew up in a time when white settlers were invading the Lakotas' homeland, decimating buffalo herds, and threatening to extinguish the Lakotas' way of life. Black Elk and others fought back, a dogged resistance that resulted in a remarkable victory at the Little Bighorn and an unspeakable tragedy at Wounded Knee.