Events on campus celebrate American Indian heritage

-- Leah Otto Johnson

Metropolitan State University scheduled eight on-campus events in November to celebrate National American Indian and Native Alaskan Heritage Month.

Officially established in November 1990 by former President George H. W. Bush, National American Indian and Native Alaskan Heritage Month is celebrated to recognize intertribal cultures, and to educate the public about the history, heritage, art and traditions of the American Indian and Native Alaskan people.

To commence last month’s schedule of events, Jack Weatherford, anthropologist and Macalester College professor, lectured on Nov. 2 about his book Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World in New Main’s Great Hall, St. Paul Campus.

Clyde Bellecourt, co-founder and national director of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and major figure in the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, lectured on Nov. 16 about the past, present and future of AIM, also in New Main’s Great Hall.

And Dick Bancroft’s Hanta Po: All of You Out of My Way, a pictorial collection of the work and history of AIM, opened on Nov. 16 at the university’s Third Floor Gallery, Library and Learning Center, St. Paul Campus.

Jack Weatherford

"So obviously important yet so obviously ignored," said Weatherford, is the impact that American Indian people have had throughout the world.

During his lecture, Weatherford spoke about how American Indian crops, such as cotton and the potato, and American Indian medicines, such as "quina-quina" or quinine, changed the ways and health of the world.

He also spoke about how during the early settlement and political foundation of the United States the languages and concepts of the American Indians, particularly of the League of the Iroquois, influenced the formation of U.S. government.

One of the U.S. government’s most important political institutions, the caucus, was borrowed from the American Indian people, he said. The term caucus, where political decisions are discussed and voted on by a group, originated with the Algonquian language, he said.

Benjamin Franklin, who held the post of Indian Commissioner for the colony of Pennsylvania in the 1750s, became acquainted with the ideas and operations of American Indian political culture, particularly with the League of the Iroquois, he said; and Franklin brought many of these ideas, including the model set by the League of the Iroquois of several self-governing units united by one central government, to the U.S. Constitution.

Franklin recognized these ideas as good concepts for government, said Weatherford, and "[they] became the basis for U.S. Senate.

"Weatherford said he hopes his work will help create and understanding that we all need and that will draw us together from inside: That we are all part of each other.

Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World is available through the MnPALS Catalog at the Library and Learning Center, St. Paul Campus.

Clyde Bellecourt

During his lecture, Bellecourt discussed not only AIM’s foundation, work and mission, but the cultural and transitional history of American Indian people.

Since AIM first began in 1968 with the foundation of the Minneapolis AIM patrol, created to address issues of extensive police brutality in American Indian communities, AIM has served over 40,000 indigenous clients.

Bellecourt spoke about the vision of Black Elk and his prophecy of the four generations of suffering. He said that this present generation is the fifth generation; and that since the foundation of AIM, the drums are being heard and the ceremonial fires are burning.

In 1969 Bellecourt released Our Brothers’ Keeper: The Indian in White America, a commission report that found over 70 percent of American Indian people unemployed and living in dire poverty, 80 percent of American Indian housing to be substandard, and a suicide rate among American Indian people 17 times the national average, he said.

This was because there was "no culture, identity, self-esteem," said Bellecourt.

He said that over 50,000 American Indian people volunteered and fought in World War I, even though the U.S. government didn’t consider American Indian people citizens until 1924.

Furthermore, that it wasn’t until 1978 that the U.S. government passed an act making it legal for American Indian people "to believe, express and exercise the traditional religions;" this act also granted "access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites," according to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

AIM’s official Web site states that work goes on because the need goes on. "It’s time to have America let ignorance and racism go," said Bellecourt.

With the help of AIM, many American Indian organizations have helped to rebuild American Indian culture, identity and self-esteem, he said, including the American Indian OIC who in the last 24 years has provided training for over 34,000 jobs.

Additionally, the Heart of the Earth Survival School has graduated more American Indian students than all Minneapolis schools combined, he said.

"[We are] taking control over our lives, our family, our community—not waiting for the government," said Bellecourt.

To learn more about Bellecourt and/or AIM, visit http://www.aimovement.org.

Dick Bancroft

Amidst the thick crowd at the Hanto Po: All of You Out of My Way reception, an anonymous woman reached out to Bancroft.

"She just grabbed my hand," he said, eyes tearing up. She didn’t say a word; for Bancroft, her grasp said enough.

Drawn to AIM by the personalities of its founders in 1969, Bancroft decided to be a participant and recorder, using his camera as his weapon to help the movement.

Over the last 35 years, Bancroft has taken hundreds of photos and traveled thousands of miles to document the work and history of AIM.

"The objective of my work was always to support the work of the Indians," he said.

He told the story of one photo in particular, Listening to Testimony on Sterilization of Indian Women, which was taken at the United Nations Conference on Indigenous People and Land in Geneva, Switzerland, 1981.

At the time Bancroft took this photo, attendees were listening to the testimony of a woman who had been sterilized. "Everyone in the room was crying," he said.

Sterilization practices of American Indian women were generally coerced and occurred in remote areas usually after child birth, he said. "Many times women were never asked. Some never even knew."

After over 150 years of not having any success in Washington, D.C., the American Indian people had decided to take their issues to the world court of public opinion, the United Nations, he said.

The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) formed in 1974 at an AIM gathering in Standing Rock, S.D. More than 5,000 representatives from 98 Indigenous Nations formed the non-governmental organization that, according to its Web site, submits testimony, documentation and formal complaints to the United Nations to redress grievances, increase awareness and impact the development of international standards protecting the rights and survival of indigenous people.

Hanto Po: All of You Out of My Way reflects the many faces of those, who from the Winter Dam Takeover to the Wounded Knee Trial to The Longest Walk, helped to shape the American Indian Movement.

"My exposure to Native American people has had a profound effect on my values and quality of life," said Bancroft. "For this I am eternally grateful."

The exhibit will continue through Dec. 15. For further information about the exhibit, visit http://www.metrostate.edu/cas/cwa/gallery.html. To find out more about IITC, visit http://www.treatycouncil.org.

American Indian student organization

Voices of Indian Council for Educational Success (VOICES), the university’s student organization group for American Indian students, cosponsored last month’s events.

Students can get involved in VOICES by attending meetings, where the development of policies and procedures that affect American Indian students is reviewed and discussed, said Sharon Romano, director of enrollment and student services/American Indian liason.

"VOICES helps other students by contacting them and being support people whom they can relate to," said Romano.

The group’s mission is to increase visibility and recognition of American Indian students at the university as well as to create a social and cultural network of support for American Indian students.

Though no board member positions are presently open, general voting member positions are available.

For further information, contact Romano at (651) 793-1219, or via email at Sharon.Romano@metrostate.edu.