Leadership
In reading over the 2013 State of Indian Nations address by outgoing President Jefferson Keel of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), a number of talking points of emphasis stood out as compelling subjects for further examination.
Once, at a tribal consultation meeting, Larry Echo Hawk, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, asked me to join him for lunch. Upon learning that I was a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, he asked about my opinion of the Freedmen issue.
A typical meeting between two Native people for the first time goes something like this:
“What tribe you from?”
“I’m a Blackfeet from Brownin’.”
“Aaahhh, my uncle is from up that way.”
“Oh yeah, he went to Chemawa with my Dad. I pow-wowed with his kids.”
On October 22, 2012, at 4:44 a.m., Oglala Lakota leader Russell Means began his journey to the spirit world.
Despite the required recount, North Dakota tribes and Indian country were already celebrating the efforts put forth for Indian champion Heidi Heitkamp’s improbable victory in her bid to hold Democrat Kent Conrad’s United States Senate seat.
The battle is over, and pundits now stroll to the battlefield and shoot the survivors. I have used this bully pulpit to urge that Indians bloc vote only when threatened as Indians. My own vote turned on threats I perceived to my family. Your mileage may vary.
Many Native American teenagers are planning their future and want to make a difference—I believe that. The Native American people have—time and again—answered our nation’s call when it comes to serving in many capacities and that includes the call of service in the military.
On October 22, 2012, at 4:44 a.m., Oglala Lakota leader Russell Means began his journey to the spirit world.
Despite the required recount, North Dakota tribes and Indian country were already celebrating the efforts put forth for Indian champion Heidi Heitkamp’s improbable victory in her bid to hold Democrat Kent Conrad’s United States Senate seat.
It would be a shame for Russell Means (1939-2012) to be remembered only as a maker of trouble, an unreasonable negotiator, and someone who pushed the limits of human behavior to the breaking point. I met him when I was an American Indian press reporter in Washington, D.C.
History is often made by accident, so we should not read too much into the almost simultaneous deaths last week of South Dakotans Russell Means and George McGovern.
I was a reporter with an NBC news station in New Mexico in the winter of 2003. The morning newspaper I was reading reported that Russell Means was going to speak to students at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado that afternoon in a presentation.
He was a hero. Make no mistake about it. And, his death in late October, is a great loss to America, not just American Indians, he challenged us a to be better people.
“…after I die, I'm coming back as lightning. When it zaps the White House, they'll know it's me."
Russell Means