Information varies on whether WARN was founded in 1974 in Rapid City, South Dakota or founded in 1978. Prior to forming their own organization, some of the women who founded WARN were activists working within the American Indian Movement (AIM) and were active in the Wounded Knee Insurrection of 1973. Madonna Thunderhawk and Lorelei DeCora Means were both part of the Pie Patrol in AIM during the occupation of Wounded Knee. Two other co-founders, Janet McCloud and Phyllis Young, had also taken part in other Red Power movement activism.