It is always hard to put into words our feelings when someone passes, even more so when that someone has had a great impact on your life. So it should be no surprise that adequate words escape us at this time. Vernon Bellecourt, a long time friend and supporter of the Oglala Commemoration has passed. Yet these words are not nearly enough to convey what Vernon really was...to me and my family, he was a friend, an uncle/grandfather, an inspiration, a mentor, a guiding light in troubled times...this, and so much more.
As I have seen so many others write recently, Vernon was truly an inspiration to Native people everywhere. His strength and courage was infectious...you could feel the power of his words as he spoke about issues facing Native peoples...especially as he spoke them in the proverbial "Lions' Den". Outside of Jacob's Field in Cleveland, he steadfastly conveyed the message that using Native people as mascots continues to dehumanize and objectify us, even as drunken fans dressed in chicken feathers hurled insults (or empty beer bottles), trying not to hear the truth of his message. In the dignified halls of academia, he took universities to task regarding the perpetuation of stereotypes and the continued desecration of sacred sites and Native remains, while administrators and professors tried to rationalize their actions. However, these rationalizations ultimately failed, as happened at the Ohio State University on more than one occasion when administrators could produce no good reason why the institution still held the remains of thousands of Native people or why they continued to support projects such as Mount Graham.
But even more important than tackling these issues head-on, was the effect that Vernon had on Native youth. His strength and his voice was an example to Native youth everywhere. Through his words and actions, many of our young warriors found inspiration. I have seen it with my own children as well as many of my former students. Through his example, they have found their own voice and the strength to stand up for what they believe.
Vernon was always excited to meet with the youth. In them he saw the future—a future that he and many other contemporary warriors had struggled for and sacrificed so much to achieve. He hoped that through these youth, the long fought struggles for equality and justice would finally come to fruition. Vernon saw the promise of a bright future in these youth and it was his dream that they would pick up the torch and carry on in the struggle. Vernon's legacy will live on in the hearts and minds of the youth that he so greatly impacted.
Vernon's support of Leonard Peltier and the Oglala Commemoration Committee has been unwavering, and his belief in our mission and message has always been a source of strength for us, particularly in those times in which the road gets hard. . Vernon Bellecourt will be sorely missed and our hearts will ache, but his strength, his words, and his actions will live on in the thousands he has inspired over the years...and I guess in the end that is what those who oppose the work of the American Indian Movement fear most.
Barry Landeros-Thomas
Oglala Commemoration
As words are hard to come by, it was an honor to have met Vernon. His legacy will live on through all the lives he has touched. His voice, his strength will sorely be missed.
Lisa Reinhold
Oglala Commemoration
www.oglalacommemoration.com
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Posted by Robin Carneen, since WOz & them, that posted Lisa's wonderful words!
Another tribute:
http://freepeltiernow.blogspot.com/
Vernon Bellecourt (1931-2007)
October 15, 2007
Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today
American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt would have celebrated his 76th birthday on Oct. 17, but now it is also the date of his burial.
Bellecourt died Oct. 13 in a Minneapolis hospital from complications of diabetes and an E. coli infection in his lungs. He was surrounded by family and friends, who said that he passed peacefully within three minutes after being removed from a respirator.
"Of all 12 of us siblings, only me and my sister are left," said Bellecourt's brother, Clyde Bellecourt, also a longtime activist in Minneapolis. "It's hard to think about what we'll do without him." Bellecourt will be laid to rest on family land on the White Earth Chippewa Reservation in northwestern Minnesota.
Bellecourt's Anishinaabe name was WaBun-Inini, which means Man of Dawn. A White Earth Band of Chippewa Indians tribal member, he once served on the tribal council and was Minneapolis-area vice president of the National Congress of American Indians.
"Vernon was a great representative of the Ojibwe Nation and one of the great communicators of our generation," said William A. Means, Oglala Lakota, Bellecourt's friend, fellow activist and community organizer. "He was the best at getting across the message of treaty rights, human rights, mascots and racism to people from the grass-roots all the way to national officials."
Means lauded Bellecourt's work as president of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media, his support of our lawsuit against the disparaging name of the Washington football team and his efforts on behalf of the International Indian Treaty Council, which Means served as president for two decades. He commended what turned out to be the final work of Bellecourt's life: "Getting another year's heating oil for 27 tribes from the people of Venezuela and CITGO." Bellecourt returned from Venezuela shortly before being hospitalized.
Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota, praised Bellecourt's leadership of the AIM Grand Governing Council in Minneapolis. Westerman recalled a 1968 meeting in Denver "where Vernon, Clyde, DJ [Dennis J. Banks, Leech Lake Chippewa] and I started the American Indian Movement; then they went to Minneapolis and made it official."
Westerman's spoke to me from a hospital bed in Los Angeles, where he was recovering from a myelodysplasia syndrome incident. "Now, all of us guys are getting up there. All that traveling - the life's been hard on us." Westerman, 71, is a singer/songwriter and actor who first rose to prominence in 1969, when his collaboration with Vine Deloria Jr. resulted in Westerman's first album, named after Deloria's bestselling book, "Custer Died For Your Sins."
I last saw Bellecourt in November 2005, at the public service following Deloria's private inturnment in Golden, Colo. Westerman was closing the service and invited all the AIM people to join him and sing the AIM song in Deloria's honor. Ward Churchill - who arrived late and loudly derided the family's projected images of Deloria on a back wall - started making his way to the front of the room.
Westerman cleverly called out the name of the man who had helped expose Churchill as a pseudo-Indian more than 15 years before he was fired for plagiarism by the University of Colorado: "Vernon Bellecourt, come on up here." Upon hearing the name of his nemesis, Churchill threw his hands in the air and left in a huff, taking with him the gathering's only discordant note.
Seeing Westerman, Bellecourt and others together that day reminded me that these were brave men and women who had put themselves in danger for the rights of all Native peoples, so I joined them in a show of solidarity. Afterward, a friend said, "I didn't know you were AIM." I wasn't, but that wasn't the point. It was a respect thing. I remember marveling at Bellecourt's verbal skills. He was like an old jazz musician who never had a lesson or needed a rehearsal - he could just play.
(In the interest of full disclosure, my late husband, Frank Ray Harjo, Wotko Muscogee - together with an Iroquois ironworker and a Nicaraguan Indian musician - were asked in 1973 by Banks to wrest a New York AIM office from a con artist who started it, and they ran it for six months. Aside from that, Harjo was a radio producer, community organizer and carver of Muscogee stickball sticks and Onondaga lacrosse sticks, whose activism pre-dated AIM).
Bellecourt was a stand-up guy, even when he was in a wheelchair, as he often was over the last five years. Never a quisling or fair-weather friend, he had a quick wit and a keen sense of what was important at any given moment. One day at a lunch meeting, I ordered a low-cal/no-carb dish and something in diet brown; he ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a sugary drink. "Is that all you're going to eat," he asked. "Yes, I'm diabetic, you know." "Well, who isn't, but no-taste food? What's the point of even eating?"
As his diabetes progressed, he called periodically to ask about my health and to say that we ought to make some public service announcements for Indian young people about what happens if you smoke and don't eat right. He was the first to congratulate me for writing a column saying that frybread wasn't healthy or traditional.
"Vernon Bellecourt was serious about services to Natives, and he reached out to be a leader in the community," said Gerald Vizenor, White Earth Chippewa, a writer and professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico. "He took part in many activities, including an interest in contemporary Native arts. I was impressed that he attended shows and exhibitions of Native American art. Vernon studied each contemporary painting, and would ask the artist to talk about his work. I once encouraged him at an art show to consider contemporary Native literature, but he seemed to be more interested in painting and sculpture."
"I crossed many paths and traveled many roads with Vernon," said Phyllis Young, Hunkpapa Lakota/Yanktonai Dakota, a community activist and a founder of Women of All Red Nations. "Vernon spent his life in pursuit of a better life for all Indian people. He did it very aggressively and never stopped, in spite of age and ailments and opposition."
Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, is president of the Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C., and a columnist for Indian Country Today.
Posted by Friends of Leonard Peltier at 1:05 PM
Never cease in the fight for peace, justice, and equality for all people.
Be persistent in all that you do and don't allow anyone to sway you from your conscience.
-- Leonard Peltier
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From November 2-4 there will be a national Books to Prisoners conference in Champaign, IL. It is open to the public and consists of a number of events related to art and writing by prisoners and getting written materials to prisoners.
For more information and details go to: http://books2prisoners.org/conference/. Please let others know about the event as well.
Posted by Friends of Leonard Peltier at 2:54 PM
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http://www.aimovement.org/iitc/index.html#CBELLECOURT
(excerpts)
"Let us put our minds together and see
what life we can make for our children."
-- Sitting Bull
Clyde is a founder and Director of the American Indian Movement. He was a major figure in the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 and played a founding role in an ongoing Indian School System, Legal Rights Center and the International Indian Treaty Council. He is also directing the Peacemaker Center for Indian youth and the AIM Patrol which provides security for the Minneapolis Indian community. He is an organizer of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media. He is founder and currently Chairman of the Board of American Indian OIC, an innovative job program that has moved over 14,000 people from welfare to full-time employment. Clyde sees a bright future: "This generation of little children is the 7th Generation. Not just Indian children but white, black, yellow and red. Our grandfathers said the 7th generation would provide new spiritual leaders, medicine people, doctors, teachers and our great chiefs. There is a spiritual rebirth going on."
* The American Indian Movement: Past, Present & Future
* Racism in Sports & The Media
* Alternative, Culturally-Based Indian Education
* American Indian Opportunities, Industrialization Centers
Vernon is a principal spokesman for the American Indian Movement and a leader in actions ranging from the 1972 occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington to the 1992 Redskin Superbowl demonstrations. He is Co-founder and first Executive Director of the Denver AIM Chapter. His involvement at Wounded Knee in 1973 led to a Federal indictment. He is a special representative of the International Indian Treaty Council and helped organize the first Treaty Conference in 1974. He was jailed for throwing his blood on the Guatemalan Embassy to protest the killing of 100,000 Indians. He was elected to a 4-year term in his White Earth tribal government and developed a model program for the spiritual education of Indian prisoners. Vernon is President of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports & Media and recipient of the City of Phoenix, Martin Luther King Human Rights Award 1993.
* Spiritual, Cultural, Philosophical, Ideological, Social, Economic, & Political Realities
* The American Indian Movement: 1492 to the Present
* The International Indian Treaty Council: 1974 to the Present
* Indian Tribal Law, and International Treaty Law
* Constitutional Rights, FBI/CIA Surveillance & Covert Action
* Mascots & Stereotypes
