By Jean West Rudnicki
“IT IS FOR US OF THE PRESENT GENERATION, IF
POSSIBLE, TO SAY SOMETHING MORE OF THESE
WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAN THAT ‘THEY ONCE LIVED’.”
– THOMAS MCKENNEY
SUPERINTENDENT OF INDIAN TRADE, 1816–1822 |
It was 1976 and the nation was in the midst of its grand Bicentennial Celebration marking 200 years of freedom and independence. A festive-filled year of events and activities:
shiny, new quarters – specially-minted to mark the occasion – circulated from the presses of the U.S. Treasury; citizens staged Boston Tea Party re-enactments; tall ships gathered in New York Harbor, and spectacular fireworks filled the skies in cities and towns across the country. The American flag was everywhere – splashed on fire hydrants, railroad locomotives; even airplanes bore the proud red, white and blue design. Everyone and everything was invited to the party, or so it seemed.
Nearing the pinnacle of Bear Butte in the Black Hills of South Dakota on a spring day in 1976, a 30-year old American Indian was on a solitary trek. Of Osage and Cherokee lineage, J.C. “High Eagle” Elliott had grown up in Oklahoma, and was raised in a traditional Indian family, though he gave his heritage little thought. It wasn’t until college that he even became aware of a “difference” between him and fellow students. With a physics degree from the University of Oklahoma, he had accepted a job in the new U.S. space program and relocated to Houston.
During the late sixties and early seventies he watched with an evolving awareness as Indian-activists seized control of Alcatraz Island, stormed the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices and staged protests at Wounded Knee – all demanding the attention of the U.S. government that continued to fail in its dealings with the country’s original inhabitants.
The bold defiance had ignited the Indian spirit and renewed a sense of pride among the native people that had seemingly fallen dormant, suppressed by years of assimilation efforts and attempts to eradicate its cultures.
Elliott himself began waking to the full richness of his heritage and its deeply spiritual traditions stretching back thousands of years. Seeking to reconnect, he found himself on an Indian reservation in the Black Hills, and though he did not speak the language of his forefathers, nor fully understood the objects and symbols of his people, he climbed the sacred mountain – the same mountain Crazy Horse had climbed a hundred years before. Elliott was on a vision quest, though he wasn’t even certain that an American Indian in 1976 could have such an experience.
Hungry and cold, he reached the top as the sun began to fade. He rested, admiring the natural beauty surrounding him, and studying the tiny black ribbon of highway that wound its way below. Then suddenly brightness seemed to fill the sky, Eillott recounts, and at “a level of consciousness somewhere between dream and reality,” he heard a voice speaking to him internally. It spoke of the enduring Indian Spirit and the Indian peoples’ eventual return to their rightful place of dignity, respect and greatness.
He wasn’t certain how much time had passed, nor was he certain of the meaning of what he had heard, but the experience had been deeply moving and its profoundness stayed with him even after he left the Black Hills and returned to Houston. Two weeks later, back in his office, he began to write. The words flowed onto the paper detailing the many contributions of the American Indians to this nation in areas of government, education, law, medicine, sports, art, the military, science and literature. It concluded calling for recognition of the American Indian during this nation’s Bicentennial Year.
The words eventually became the basis of legislation passed by the Senate and House (Senate Joint Resolution 209) four months later, though he was warned the legislative process moves slowly – sometimes taking as long as two years. Elliott never doubted its timely success. On October 8, 1976, in Lawton, Oklahoma, in the presence of Indian leaders and Elliott, President Gerald Ford signed the official proclamation declaring October 10-16, 1976 as National Native American Awareness Week. It serves as a forerunner to the November designation as National American Indian Heritage Month, first proclaimed in 1990.
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