Looking for Indian heroes
Tim Giago: Recognize an Indian hero in the new yearI was born, raised, and educated on an Indian reservation where the people oftentimes see the world through the wrong end of the telescope. It is a place where the people do not necessarily see George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson or Teddy Roosevelt (the four faces on Mount Rushmore) as heroes. On the 50th Anniversary of the carving of Mount Rushmore, I was featured in People Magazine because I called Mount Rushmore “The Shrine of Hypocrisy.”
In the article I outlined some of the atrocities against the Indian people perpetrated by the four presidents carved on the mountain. In fact, the month of December not only was the month of the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, it was also the month when 38 Sioux warriors were hanged in Minnesota in the largest mass hanging in this Nation’s history, by order of President Abraham Lincoln.
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Writerfella here --
Weds. 1/3 - Verbatim from tonight's ANADARKO DAILY NEWS: "A Seminole, OK, woman who says she was the first female elected as a chief of an American Indian tribe in Oklahoma believes she should be added to the state's Hall of Fame (NOTE: to which writerfella already was added in 1992).
Dora Schexnider Young now lives in a tiny, unpainted house on a relative's original allotment. But in 1973, she was elected as chief of the 3200 member Sac and Fox tribe by 67 votes.
In her house, she has a copy of THE INDIAN NEWS that contaions the headline, 'Sac And Fox Tribe Elects Woman Chief.' The accompanying article notes that she 'is believed to be the first woman ever to be elected as head of any tribe in Oklahoma.'
Young said she 'broke ground' for tribal governments in Oklahoma.
'I feel I very definitely need to get into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame for that point alone,' she said.
In 1985, Wilma Mankiller received national recognition from publications including TIME when she was elected as the first female chief of the 250,000 member Cherokee Nation. By compariosn, Young's election received little notice.
'I gues she had good (public relations) people,' Young said of Mankiller, who was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1994.
Before Young, only one woman had served as the chief of an Oklahoma tribe -- Alice Brown Davis, who led the Seminole Nation from 1922 to 1935.
'She was appointed, but I was the first elected,' Young said. 'There's a lot of difference between elected and appointed.'
After her 1973 election, Young's opponents contested the result. She won another election six months later.
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Funny thing about history. No one ever reads it completely...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
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