Physicians at the reservation clinic believed that he had been brought in inebriated. While at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in south-central South Dakota, he developed severe vertigo. His father died in 1967 and, in his twenties, Means lived in several Indian reservations throughout the United States while searching for work. 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. He attended four colleges but did not graduate from any of them. Means grew up in the Bay Area, graduating in 1958 from San Leandro High School in San Leandro, California. His father worked at the shipyard in Vallejo. In 1942, the Means family resettled in the San Francisco Bay Area, seeking to escape the poverty and problems of the reservation.
He was given the name Wanbli Ohitika by his mother, which means 'Brave Eagle' in the Lakota language. As well as Russell, the family had two other boys (William "Bill" and Warren) and three girls (Madonna, Mabel Ann and Phyllis). His mother was a Yankton Dakota from Greenwood, South Dakota and his father, an Oglala Lakota. Means was born on Novemin Porcupine, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, to Theodora Louise Feather and Walter "Hank" Means. 2 Involvement with the American Indian Movement.