Native Authors Earn Recognition

Excellent News - not only did Sherman Alexie win a National Book Award last night in New York City for his young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,
but also N. Scott Momaday is being honored at the White House today. See the following links to read more about both of these amazing Native authors.

2007 National Book Award Winner, Young People's Literature:
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Little, Brown & Company

Thursday, November 15, 2007
Bush adding to poet's honors
By M.J. Van Deventer
http://newsok.com/article/3169308/?print=1
NewsOK.com - Oklahoma City,OK,USA

Oklahoma Centennial Poet Laureate N. Scott Momaday will receive the National Medal of Arts in a ceremony at the White House today. President Bush announced the 10 recipients for 2007 on Monday.

Momaday is the only Oklahoman and the only author to be honored. The recipients will be honored in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House this morning. President and Mrs. Laura Bush will present the awards.

The National Endowment for the Arts manages the National Medal of Arts nomination process and notified the recipients of their selection to receive the medal, the nation's highest honor for artistic excellence.

"We are delighted that N. Scott Momaday has received this distinguished honor for his contributions to American literature. His books, poetry and memoirs, which so lyrically celebrate Native American culture, have made a historic contribution to our national letters,” NEA chairman Dana Gioia said.

Established by Congress in 1984, the National Medal of Arts goes to recipients based on their contribution to the creation, growth and support of the arts in the United States.

"Scott is one of those rare individuals who belong to Oklahoma and to the world,” said Betty Price, former executive director of the Oklahoma Arts Council. She will attend the ceremony.

"His generous spirit touches our lives — both Indian and non-Indian. He is among the few honored ones who have been named an Official Oklahoma Cultural Treasure. His compositions allow us to see the world through his eyes and have enriched our national culture,” Price said.

Momaday is the third Oklahoman to receive the honor. Ballerina Maria Tallchief and sculptor Allan Houser were previous recipients.

Momaday is a Pulitzer Prize- wining writer who celebrates American Indian art and oral tradition in his novels and essays. A member of the Kiowa tribe, he also is a poet, painter, playwright, photographer, storyteller and professor of English.

Gov. Brad Henry named Momaday the Oklahoma Centennial State Poet Laureate on July 12 at an Oklahoma History Centerceremony.

Momaday, whose first name is Navarre, was born in Lawton on Feb. 27, 1934. Momaday learned the Navajo, Apache and Pueblo Indian cultures of the Southwest while growing up because both his mother and father taught on Indian reservations in Arizona and New Mexico.

After receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of New Mexico, Momaday won a poetry fellowship to the creative writing program at Stanford University.

He earned a doctorate in English literature there in 1963, and took a teaching position at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Of Momaday's books, "The Way To Rainy Mountain," written in 1969, and "The Names,” written in 1976, emphasize the importance of landscape and heritage. His collections of poetry include most recently, "In The Presence Of The Sun,” published in 1992, and "In The Bear's House,” published in 1999. A new collection of poetry is in progress.

Momaday divides his time between Oklahoma City and Santa Fe, N.M., where he is a senior scholar at the School for Advanced Research.

He is the founder and chairman of The Buffalo Trust, a nonprofit foundation for the preservation and restoration of Native American culture, a founding trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington and a founding member of The Stewardship Council of the Autry Center for the American West in Los Angeles.

Vernon Bellecourt Passes

R.I.P.Vernon Bellecourt

Date: Oct 13, 2007 10:46 PM
AIM Leader Vernon Bellecourt Dies at 75

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Vernon Bellecourt, a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement who fought against the use of American Indian nicknames for sports teams, died Saturday his brother said. He was 75.

Bellecourt died at Abbott Northwestern Hospital of complications of pneumonia, according to Clyde Bellecourt, a founding member of the militant American Indian rights group. Just before he was put on the respirator, Vernon Bellecourt joked that the CIA had finally gotten him, his brother said.

"He was willing to put his butt on the line to draw attention to racism in sports," his brother said.

Vernon Bellecourt — whose Objibwe name WaBun-Inini means Man of Dawn — was a member of Minnesota's White Earth band and was an international spokesman for the AIM Grand Governing Council based in Minneapolis.Clyde Bellecourt helped found AIM as a militant group in 1968 and Vernon Bellecourt soon became involved, taking part in the 1973 occupation of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He was present only briefly during the 71-day standoff with federal agents, serving mostly as a spokesman and fundraiser, Clyde Bellecourt said.

He was active in the campaign to free AIM activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout in 1975 on the Pine Ridge reservation.He was also involved as a negotiator in AIM's 1972 occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington as part of the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan.In recent years, Bellecourt had been active in the fight against American Indian nicknames for sports teams as president of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media.

He was arrested in Cleveland during the 1997 World Series and again in 1998 during protests against the Cleveland Indians' mascot, Chief Wahoo. Charges were dropped the first time and he was never charged in the second case.After Wounded Knee, Vernon Bellecourt became a leader of AIM's work abroad, meeting with presidents such as Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, his brother said. He said they plan to list them as honorary pallbearers.

Clyde Bellecourt said his brother had been in Venezuela about four weeks ago to meet with President Hugo Chavez to discuss Chavez' program for providing heating assistance to American Indian tribes. He fell ill around the time of his return, Clyde Bellecourt said.

*PLEASE PRAY FOR THE FAMILY OF VERNON BELLECOURT*

Vernon Bellecourt (WaBun-Inini)

SERVICES:

MONDAY, October 15, 2007

PMALL NATIONS CHURCH

1515 East 23rd Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota

TUESDAY, October 16, 2007

Circle of Life School, White Earth, Minnesota

WEDNESDAY

Funeral, White Earth, Minnesota

For further information contact Clyde Bellecourt at 612-251-5836

Donations needed and accepted

American Indian lawsuit sparked by Montana woman being heard
Oct 10, 2007 07:26 AM CDT
Reporting from KPAX in Missoula

Some 11 years ago a woman from Montana sued the federal Interior Department over money owed to Native Americans and over time that suit by Elouise Cobell of Browning became the largest class action ever filed against the U.S. government.

Come Wednesday Cobell will be in a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C. as her case goes to trial for the second time. At issue is whether or nit the government can provide an accounting for money that it held in trust for half a 500,000 people.

Cobell believes that if she wins it could be the key to ending the lawsuit.

"Then we can come up with an amount that is due Indian beneficiaries. Actually it's called the remedy. And then we would be able to come up with a rough justice figure about how much is owed. I think we're a huge step closer to people getting their money."

Cobell and her lawyers believe the government could owe Native Americans hundreds of billions of dollars in principal and interest dating back to the 1800's.

Two years ago Cobell's legal team offered to settle the case for $27 billion.

For a full list of documents that have been produced in this ongoing (since 1996) litigation:
see Indian Trust: Cobell v. Kempthorne