E. Donald "Ed" Two-Rivers, sometimes known as Donald Two-River, was an Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) poet, playwright and spoken-word performer.
Brought up first on the reservation and then in the urban Native community in Chicago, Two-Rivers has been an activist for Native rights since the 1970s, for which he was awarded the Iron Eyes Cody Award for Peace in 1992. He is also an accomplished poet, who has, among other honours, been awarded the American Book Award in 1992. A critic of "victim politics", Two-Rivers is a strong supporter of programs that give disadvantaged Native peoples the chance to stand on their own two feet. [1]
He had been critical of Euro-American directors and actors in the past, saying that "I believe that for non-Natives to perform a Native American play, they would first have to undergo a certain level of sensitivity training. In fact, I would require it for any of my plays."
E. Donald Two-Rivers was the founding (Artistic Director) of the Chicago-based Red Path Theater Company.
In 2007, he returned to Chicago, to work on his last book In the Spirit of the Coyote.
He died December 27, 2008. [2]
In 2009, a mosaic inspired by his poem "Indian Land Dancing" was dedicated in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. [3]
The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was the deadliest mass shooting in American history, involving nearly three hundred Lakota people shot and killed by soldiers of the United States Army. The massacre, part of what the U.S. military called the Pine Ridge Campaign, occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, following a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp. The previous day, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside approached Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them five miles westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp. The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrived and surrounded the encampment. The regiment was supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns. The Army was catering to the anxiety of settlers who called the conflict the Messiah War and were worried the Ghost Dance signified a potentially dangerous Sioux resurgence. Historian Jeffrey Ostler wrote in 2004, "Wounded Knee was not made up of a series of discrete unconnected events. Instead, from the disarming to the burial of the dead, it consisted of a series of acts held together by an underlying logic of racist domination."
A powwow is a gathering with dances held by many Native American and First Nations communities. Powwows today are an opportunity for Indigenous people to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures. Powwows may be private or public, indoors or outdoors. Dancing events can be competitive with monetary prizes. Powwows vary in length from single-day to weeklong events.
John Trudell was a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz. During most of the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
James Phillip Welch Jr., who grew up within the Blackfeet and A'aninin cultures of his parents, was a Native American novelist and poet, considered a founding author of the Native American Renaissance. His novel Fools Crow (1986) received several national literary awards, and his debut novel Winter in the Blood (1974) was adapted as a film by the same name, released in 2013.
Paula Gunn Allen was an American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Arab-American, and Native American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo. Gunn Allen wrote numerous essays, stories and poetry with Native American and feminist themes, and two biographies of Native American women. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary writing.
(Helen) Diane Glancy is an American poet, author, and playwright.
LeAnne Howe is an American author and Eidson Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Georgia, Athens. She previously taught American Indian Studies and English at the University of Minnesota and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Wendy Rose is an American writer. Having grown up in an environment which placed little emphasis on both her Native American and white background, much of her verse deals with her search for her personal identity. She is also an anthropologist, artist, and social scientist.
The Gathering of Nations is the largest pow-wow in the United States and North America. It is held annually on the fourth weekend in April, on the Powwow Grounds at Expo NM, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Over 565 tribes from around the United States and 220 from Canada travel to Albuquerque to participate.
Wild West shows were traveling vaudeville performances in the United States and Europe that existed around 1870–1920. The shows began as theatrical stage productions and evolved into open-air shows that depicted romanticized stereotypes of cowboys, Plains Indians, army scouts, outlaws, and wild animals that existed in the American West. While some of the storylines and characters were based on historical events, others were fictional or sensationalized.
Anna Lee Walters is a Pawnee/Otoe–Missouria author.
Joseph A. Dandurand is a Kwantlen person (Xalatsep) from Kwantlen First Nation in British Columbia. He is a poet, playwright, and archaeologist.
Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana is a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe, Métis, and Cree people in Montana. The name of the tribe is often shortened to Little Shell. The current population of enrolled tribal members is approximately 6,500. They have a 35,000-sq. foot office complex in Great Falls.
Denise Low is an American poet, honored as the second Kansas poet laureate (2007–2009). A professor at Haskell Indian Nations University, Low taught literature, creative writing and American Indian studies courses at the university. She was succeeded by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg on July 1, 2009.
The Halluci Nation, formerly known as A Tribe Called Red, is a Canadian electronic music group who blend instrumental hip hop, reggae, moombahton and dubstep-influenced dance music with elements of First Nations music, particularly vocal chanting and drumming. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, the group consists of Tim "2oolman" Hill, and Ehren "Bear Witness" Thomas. Former members include co-founder DJ Jon Deck and Dan "DJ Shub" General, who left the band for personal reasons in spring 2014, and was replaced by Hill. Co-founder Ian "DJ NDN" Campeau left the band for health reasons in October 2017, with the band opting to remain a duo for the time being.
Alice Azure is an American poet and writer. She is a member of the St. Louis Poetry Center.
The Council of Three Rivers is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Native American intertribal organization that was organized in the early 1970s. The organization owns land that is used for the site of an annual, intertribal pow-wow. The center also conducts meetings for its members. The Center remodeled former military structures to house their organization. The center assists its members with childcare, senior care and other forms of assistance. The site is maintained by Fred Deer who initiated its renovation in 1986. He is also a member of the advisory council of the Council of Three Rivers. Activities include the preservation of Native American art forms such as bone and wood carving, bead-work and pow-wows. The council's annual Pow-Wow hosts Native American artists, dancers, singers, and drummers from a variety of indigenous groups such as Cuban Taino and Alaskan Tlingit.
DJ Shub is a Mohawk DJ and music producer and member of the Six Nations of the Grand River. He has won numerous awards for his work as a former member of A Tribe Called Red, a DJ, and for solo pursuits.
There There is the debut novel by Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange. Published in 2018, the book follows a large cast of Native Americans living in the Oakland, California area and contains several essays on Native American history and identity. The characters struggle with a wide array of challenges, ranging from depression and alcoholism, to unemployment, fetal alcohol syndrome, and the challenges of living with an "ambiguously nonwhite" ethnic identity in the United States. All of the characters unite at a community powwow and its attempted robbery.
Willard Earl LaMere was a Native American community organizer and educational leader in Chicago, Illinois in the mid twentieth century, a period when the US government's Indian termination policy encouraged Native Americans to assimilate into mainstream American society. Working to preserve Native American culture and values as Native Americans moved from reservations to cities, LaMere was instrumental in founding, among other organizations, the Native American Educational Services College, which became the first higher education institution in an urban setting managed by and serving Native Americans. He was also the college's first graduate.
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