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.