For Native rights activist Susan Shown Harjo, advocacy is about pride, preservation and progress—pride in and preservation of a rich cultural heritage in the face of all obstacles, and progress made, and still to be made, in achieving full equality under the law.
Harjo discussed these themes in her Nov. 13 keynote address for the Library’s 2008 celebration of Native American Heritage Month.
Harjo acknowledged the Library’s efforts to preserve the ancient languages of Native Americans. She cited the Library’s 1970 acquisition of 19th-century wax cylinder field recordings of the music, songs and stories of the Passamaquoddy tribe of Maine.
“It’s an amazing gift,” said Harjo. “People can hear the sound of a language they had never heard in their lives and songs that had gone out of society,” said added.
She spoke about the practice of sending Native children to Indian boarding schools where they were forced to learn English. She recalled that her father was beaten for speaking his native Muscokee language in the Chilocc Indian School. Ironically, he became a linguist, fluent in 11 languages, with a tendency to stutter in English. Harjo attributes this to the duress under which he learned that particular language. His gift for languages was put to use during World War II, when he served as a cryptographer for the U.S. Army. Like other Native American servicemen, he was a “code talker,” transmitting messages over military communication devices using codes built upon native languages.
“The codes saved many a life, including his,” said Harjo.
To underscore the fact that Native Americans proudly fought and died for this country, Harjo cited Ernest Childers, a Muscogee (Creek) Indian from Broken Arrow, Okla., who received the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II. He was a member of the Army’s 45th Infantry in Italy, the battalion that liberated Dachau, the Nazi death camp.
“They took the first pictures of the men in striped pajamas,” said Harjo, referring to the clothing forced on the occupants of the Nazi concentration camps.
Harjo’s great-great-uncle Lean Bear was a casualty of the Civil War. While many Native Americans did fight in what they called “the war between brothers,” some agreed to Abraham Lincoln’s personal request that they remain neutral. (By doing so, tribes in the southern plains helped the Union cause). Harjo’s forebear was among those who agreed to remain neutral. Nonetheless, he was killed despite carrying a letter of safe passage from President Lincoln.
To preserve this proud legacy and to document a 500-year struggle against racism, the National Museum of the American Indian opened in New York in 1994 and in Washington, D.C., in 2004, both under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, with Harjo as a founding trustee and guest curator.
In addition to the opening of the museums, Harjo cited passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978 and the Repatriation Laws in 1990 as signs of progress. She also noted the presidential election of Barack Obama as “great reason for hope and optimism.” But she does not believe, as many political pundits have posited, that we have become a “post-racial” society.
“It is absurd to think that the election of one African American male makes this a post-racial or post-native society,” she said. As an example of a continued struggle, she cited the battle over the return of Native Americans’ sacred places.
“We are the only people in America not permitted to use the First Amendment to protect our sacred places, even when they are next to Christian churches on public land,” she said.
“As we live from day to day, things get better. But we must beware of the pull and tug to return us to the past, or to throw cold water on the warmth of hope. We must recognize it and not let it stop us from making progress.”
As inspiration, she cited an Iroquois directive: “Pick a path, follow it, do not look left or right. And do not listen to the voices of distraction.”
