Native American Indians, Rapid City, SD (2026)

06/11/2026

July 13, 1985.
Willie Nelson was at home in Texas watching Live Aid on a small television.
The concert was raising money for famine in Africa. Bob Dylan walked to the microphone at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. He said something no one had asked him to say.
He said he hoped some of the money raised that night could go to American farmers. He said the farmers here at home were losing their land. He said one or two million dollars could pay the mortgages on some of those farms.
The crowd in Philadelphia kept cheering. Most of them didn't catch what Dylan had said.
Willie Nelson caught it.
He turned off the TV. He picked up the phone.
He called Neil Young. He called John Mellencamp.
He told them they were going to do their own concert.
He gave them 10 weeks.
What Willie knew was this.
Family farms across America were going bankrupt at a rate of 700 a week. Interest rates had spiked above 20 percent. The Reagan administration had pulled back farm price supports. Farms that had been in families for 4 generations were being foreclosed on by the same banks that had loaned the money.
Children were watching their fathers cry at kitchen tables.
Some of those fathers were taking their own lives.
The farm su***de rate in 1985 was the highest in American history.
Willie called every musician he knew. He called Bob Dylan. He called Loretta Lynn. He called Merle Haggard. He called Roy Orbison. He called BB King. He called Tom Petty. He called Billy Joel.
They all said yes.
September 22, 1985. Memorial Stadium, University of Illinois at Champaign.
The concert started at noon. It ended at midnight.
Over 50 acts performed. Roughly 80,000 people came. Millions watched on TBS, which carried the show live for 14 straight hours.
By the time the last act left the stage, Farm Aid had raised 9 million dollars.
Willie did not let it end there.
He called another one for 1986.
Then 1987.
Then every single year since.
Farm Aid has now been held in cities across America for 40 consecutive years. The lineup has included Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, John Fogerty, Dave Matthews, Wilco, Norah Jones, Lukas Nelson, Margo Price, and hundreds of others. Every performer has played for free.
Every cent of profit has gone to American family farmers.
Over 40 years, Farm Aid has raised more than 80 million dollars.
The money has not gone to corporate agribusiness. It has not gone to giant industrial farms. It has gone, by careful design, only to family farmers.
It has paid off mortgages.
It has paid for legal defenses against foreclosure.
It has funded a national crisis hotline for farmers in distress.
It has trained the next generation of small-scale sustainable farmers.
It has lobbied Congress on behalf of independent agriculture.
It has built networks that connect family farmers directly to consumers and restaurants, so the money skips the middlemen who take most of the profit.
Tens of thousands of family farms have been saved.
The children who watched their fathers cry at those kitchen tables in 1985 are adults now. Some of them are running the farms their parents nearly lost. Some of them are running the farms their grandparents nearly lost. Some of them have written letters to Farm Aid asking how they can give back to the next generation.
Most of those farmers have never met Willie Nelson.
He has not needed them to.
Willie grew up the son of a sharecropper in Abbott, Texas. He picked cotton as a child. His grandmother raised him after his parents left the family. He played in honky-tonks for tips before he was old enough to drive. He spent decades barely making rent.
He was 44 years old before he had his first number one record.
He has not forgotten where he came from.
He has not forgotten the dust on the kitchen table.
He has not forgotten what it feels like to watch your family lose its land.
He turned 93 in April 2026.
He still tours when he can. He still chairs the board of Farm Aid. He still plays the closing set at every concert.
The farmers who write to Farm Aid every year do not write to Willie. They write to the foundation. They write about the bank that almost took their land. They write about the children they were able to keep in the house. They write about the cousin who almost called the crisis hotline and then did.
They write thank-you letters to a foundation that does not have a face.
The face is Willie's.
He has never asked them to know.
He saw Bob Dylan say one sentence on a stage in Philadelphia in 1985.
He picked up the phone.
He has not put it down for 40 years.

06/11/2026

In 1975, a rodeo cowboy who had never acted before became one of cinema's most unforgettable characters. He was discovered not on a stage, but through a rodeo announcer who knew the biggest Native American in the circuit.
His name was Will Sampson.
The producers of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest had been searching for months. They needed someone to play Chief Bromden, a towering Native American patient in a psychiatric ward who pretends to be deaf and mute. Someone who could stand next to Jack Nicholson and not be overshadowed. Someone physically imposing. Someone authentic. They had auditioned countless professional actors. None had the right presence.
Then a local businessman and rodeo announcer named Mel Lambert got a call from producer Michael Douglas. When Douglas mentioned they were looking for a big man to play the Chief, Lambert knew exactly who to contact. Six months later he called Douglas back.
""The biggest so*******ch Indian came in the other day.""
That man was Will Sampson.
William Sampson Jr. was born on September 27, 1933, in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma. He was a full-blooded member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. For about twenty years he competed in rodeos, specializing in bronco busting. He stood 6 feet 7 inches tall. He was a painter. He was a rodeo cowboy. He was not an actor.
When Sampson flew to meet with producers and Nicholson, the plane was small. Sampson was so large that Nicholson sat in his lap during the flight. Douglas later recalled Nicholson repeating over and over: ""It's the Chief, man, it's the Chief."" Sampson was hired after a single interview. He brought some of his paintings along, figuring that if he didn't get the part, maybe he could sell one to the producers. He got the part. They bought his paintings too.
On set, Will Sampson became something more than just an actor learning his lines. Director Miloš Forman was obsessed with perfection. Nicholson was full of wild manic energy. The film was being shot at the actual Oregon State Hospital alongside real psychiatric patients. It was intense and ch*otic. Sampson was the calm in the storm.
The film was released in November 1975 and became a massive critical and commercial success. It won all five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Nicholson, Best Actress for Louise Fletcher, and Best Screenplay. Only two other films in history have ever achieved this clean sweep, It Happened One Night in 1934 and The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.
The final scene, where Chief Bromden rips a massive marble sink out of the floor and hurls it through a window to escape, became one of the most iconic moments in cinema history. A symbol of pure freedom. Of finding your voice. Of breaking free from the systems that c*ge you.
But Sampson never forgot who he was.
""I'm first, last, and always a painter,"" he once said.
His paintings depicted the life and traditions of his Muscogee people. He wanted Native Americans to be seen as human beings with deep spirits, not the savages or background extras they usually were in old Western movies. His works have been exhibited at the Library of Congress, the Amon Carter Museum, the Gilcrease Museum, and the Philbrook Museum of Art.
Sampson also became a fierce advocate for authentic Native American representation in Hollywood. During production of The White Buffalo in 1977, he learned that producers had hired non-Native American actors to play most of the Native roles. In protest, he refused to act alongside them and shut down production for a day. That experience changed everything.
In 1983, Sampson and his longtime personal assistant Zoe Escobar founded the American Indian Registry for the Performing Arts, securing a $30,000 grant from the Administration for Native Americans. The registry became a clearinghouse for Native American actors, giving them opportunities they had never had before. Their work eventually helped pave the way for films like Dances With Wolves, which featured Native American actors in all Native American roles and won seven Oscars including Best Picture.
After Cuckoo's Nest, Sampson appeared in The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976 as Chief Ten Bears, The White Buffalo in 1977 as Crazy Horse, and had a recurring television role in Vega$ from 1978 to 1981. In 1986, he appeared in Poltergeist II: The Other Side as a Native American shaman, performing real blessing ceremonies on set. People began calling him a real-life medicine man.
In 1987, Sampson was diagnosed with scleroderma, a chronic degenerative autoimmune condition affecting the heart, lungs, and skin. His weight dropped from 260 pounds to 140 pounds. He underwent a heart and lung transplant at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas. On June 3, 1987, Will Sampson d*ed of post-operative kidney failure and fungal infection. He was 53 years old.
""I will miss a great friend,"" Jack Nicholson said through his agent.
Sampson was buried at Graves Creek Cemetery in Hitchita, within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation boundaries. Years later, his Poltergeist II co-star Craig T. Nelson drove hours to find the grave. He stopped at a corner store to ask for directions. The man standing next to him was Will Sampson's cousin. He showed Nelson the way. It was cicada season. The buzzing was overwhelming. Nelson approached the grave and said, ""Hey Will, it's Craig."" Within seconds, the cicadas stopped. Complete silence. Nelson never forgot it.
Will Sampson's son Timothy later played Chief Bromden in a 2001 Broadway revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. His sons Sam and Micco formed a duo performing Native American hoop dance to hip-hop music, and on what would have been Will's 85th birthday, released a musical tribute in his honor.
Will Sampson never wanted to be just another Hollywood star. He was a painter first. A rodeo cowboy. A member of the Muscogee Nation. A father. An advocate for his people. Acting was just another canvas, another way to tell the stories that mattered.
Every time someone watches Chief Bromden rip that sink from the floor and hurl it through the window into the night, they are seeing more than a movie scene. They are seeing a symbol of freedom. They are seeing a man who refused to let the world silence him.
He was a giant in every sense of the word.

06/11/2026

Floyd " Red Crow " Westerman, musician, actor and activist native of South Dakota.
We were told we would see America come and go. In a sense, America dies from the inside out, because they have forgotten the instructions to live on Mother Earth. This is the Hopi creed, it is our creed, that if you are not spiritually connected to the Earth, and you don't understand the spiritual reality of life on Earth, chances are you are not going to make it.
Everything is spiritual, everything has one
Spirit.
We are here on Earth only a few winters, then we go to the spirit world. The spirit world is more real than most of us realize.
The spirit world is everything. Most of our body is water. To stay healthy you need to drink pure water. Water is sacred, air is sacred. Our DNA is made from the same DNA as the tree, the tree breathes what we breathe out, we need what the tree expires. So we have a common fate with the tree. We are all of the Earth, and when the Earth and its water and atmosphere are corrupted, then the Earth will create her reaction. The Mother reacts.
In the Hopi prophecy it says that storms and floods will get bigger.
For me it is not negative to know that there will be big changes. It's not negative, it's evolution. When you look at it as an Evolution, you know it's time, nothing stays the same. You should learn to plant something. This is the first connection. You should look at all things as Spirit, realize that we are family. It never ends. Everything is life and there is no end to life.

06/10/2026

In the spring of 1933, guests gathered at the White House for a state dinner hosted by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Diplomats and officials expected speeches and formalities. Instead, they watched a Chickasaw woman step forward in traditional dress and begin to tell a story older than the republic itself. Her voice carried legends shaped long before the founding of the United States.

She was Mary "Te Ata" Thompson Fisher, born in 1895 near Emet in what was then Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Her Chickasaw name, Te Ata, is often translated as Bearer of the Morning. She grew up hearing the stories of her people, accounts of creation, animals, and moral lessons preserved through oral tradition. At a time when federal policy aimed to assimilate Native communities and suppress their languages, such stories were acts of continuity.

Te Ata studied at the Oklahoma College for Women, where she trained in drama. Her instructors recognized that her talent lay not in adopting fictional roles, but in presenting the narratives she had learned as a child. She began performing Native American legends in churches, schools, and civic halls, using modest fees to support herself. Her performances combined careful research, expressive movement, and a deliberate cadence that emphasized respect for the source material.

As her reputation grew, she traveled beyond Oklahoma to New York and other cultural centers. Audiences accustomed to romanticized or stereotyped depictions of Native Americans encountered instead a woman who framed these traditions as living heritage. She presented Chickasaw stories as part of a wider tapestry of Native cultures, often explaining their context before beginning the tale.

The invitation to perform for Roosevelt marked a turning point. In the years that followed, she appeared before national and international figures, including Eleanor Roosevelt, who maintained a friendship with her, and during the 1939 visit of George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. These appearances did not transform federal policy toward Native nations, but they signaled a willingness in certain circles to acknowledge Native culture as part of the country’s present, not only its past.

For more than sixty years, Te Ata traveled extensively, performing in schools, camps, and concert halls across the United States and abroad. She adjusted her selections for different audiences, yet she maintained a consistent purpose. She sought to counter the idea that Native Americans belonged to history alone. Her stage became a forum for cultural endurance.

In 1987, the state of Oklahoma named her its first official State Treasure, a symbolic recognition of her contribution to cultural life. She also directed proceeds from a documentary about her work toward scholarships for Native students, reinforcing her commitment to education and continuity.

Te Ata died in 1995, shortly before her one hundredth birthday. By then, she had witnessed dramatic changes in the legal status and public perception of Native Americans. Her performances did not claim to resolve those struggles. They preserved and shared stories that might otherwise have faded from public view.

When she stood before presidents or royalty, she carried narratives shaped by generations who had survived displacement and policy aimed at erasure. Her work demonstrated that oral tradition can move from fireside to formal hall without losing its authority. The stories she told were not relics. They were reminders that cultural memory endures when someone chooses to speak it aloud.

06/10/2026

Born in the rugged landscapes of Lukachukai, Arizona, John Kinsel Sr. grew up speaking Navajo, a language that would one day become one of the most powerful and secret tools of World War II. When he joined the United States Marine Corps, he became part of an elite and historic group known as the Navajo Code Talkers—young Native American Marines whose mission would quietly change the course of the war in the Pacific.

During some of the most brutal battles in World War II, including Guam, Bougainville, and Iwo Jima, Kinsel carried out a duty that demanded both courage and precision. Amid chaos, gunfire, and constant danger, he transmitted critical battlefield messages in the Navajo language. What made his service extraordinary was not just bravery under fire, but the fact that the code they used was never broken by enemy forces. Every message he sent helped coordinate troops, save lives, and strengthen Allied operations in moments where seconds could decide survival or loss.

Yet for John Kinsel Sr., this service was never about recognition. Like many Code Talkers of his generation, he returned home quietly, carrying the weight of war while living a life rooted in humility, culture, and tradition. For decades, their contributions remained classified, and their heroism was known only to a few.

As time passed, the world finally began to recognize what these Marines had truly accomplished. John Kinsel Sr. came to symbolize not only military courage, but also the endurance of Navajo language and identity. His voice became a living bridge between history and heritage, reminding younger generations that culture itself can be a powerful force in defending freedom.

After his passing at the age of 107, tributes poured in from Native communities, veterans, and historians who saw him as part of a generation that can never be replaced. His legacy stands as a reminder that some of the most important victories in history were not only fought with weapons, but also with words carried in an unbreakable language.

06/10/2026

There was a time—not so long ago—when the Southeast of the United States was shaped by a society that worked in a radically different way from European society. It was the Cherokee Nation. In that society, women were not subordinate. They were pillars.

Their culture was matrilineal: children belonged to their mother’s clan, and wealth—fields, homes, stories—passed from woman to woman. When a couple married, the man moved into the wife’s home, not the other way around. And if a woman decided the marriage was over, all she had to do was place his personal belongings outside the door. The message was clear. And respected.

Cherokee women owned the houses. They cultivated corn, beans, and squash—the “Three Sisters” that fed the community. They managed food, raised children, wove baskets, tanned hides, and kept the culture alive. But they weren’t only mothers and caretakers. They were also leaders.

Some were Ghigau—“Beloved Women”—with religious, moral, and political authority. They could speak in tribal councils, decide the fate of prisoners, and even influence declarations of war. The most famous was Nanyehi, also known as Nancy Ward. During the American Revolution, she negotiated directly with colonial leaders.

When European settlers arrived, they were shocked by this reality. The traveler James Adair dismissed it as a “government in petticoats,” unable to understand a society where women held real power.

Over time, that power was attacked. The U.S. government imposed patriarchal structures: it recognized only male chiefs, pushed private property toward men, and denied women the right to represent their people in official treaties. Missionaries preached female submission. The matrilineal system was slowly dismantled.

And yet, Cherokee women resisted. Some still pass down stories, language, and lines of descent through mothers today. It wasn’t a perfect society. But it was a concrete demonstration that male dominance is not natural or inevitable. It’s a cultural choice. And they had chosen a different path.

That path was almost erased. But not forgotten. Because every time a woman is silenced in the name of “tradition,” we can remember the Cherokee—and say: “Other worlds have existed. And they can exist again.”

06/09/2026

He died forgotten, in a gray and distant London, in 1892.
Buried among strangers, with a name no one there could even pronounce.

And yet, 103 years later, an ordinary woman digging through second-hand books at a flea market would rewrite his story.

Chief Long Wolf was a Lakota Sioux warrior, born on the wide plains of South Dakota, sacred land of his ancestors. He had come to Europe with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, a spectacle that turned thousand-year-old ceremonies into circus acts for European audiences hungry for the exotic.

From warrior… to curiosity on display.

Then came the cold.
London’s damp air.
And pneumonia.

He died far from home, far from anyone who spoke his language, far from those who knew his real name. There was no money to take him back. No family there to claim him. He was buried in an anonymous corner of Brompton Cemetery. A headstone with a carved wolf. Nothing more.

For more than a century, his grave was just one among thousands.

Until the day Elizabeth Knight, a woman with no connection to the Lakota people, leafing through an old book about the Far West, read a single line:

“A Sioux chief who died in London, buried at Brompton.”

That fragment never left her mind. She wasn’t a historian. She had no degrees. She wasn’t looking for attention. Just a sense of justice.

And so she began to search.

She went to the cemetery. She found the grave, swallowed by weeds and rain. She wrote to museums, archives, embassies. Many told her: “Let it go, it’s been too long.”

But she didn’t let it go.

She discovered his true name. Rebuilt his life, his tribe, the reservation he had left behind. And then she did something no one expected: she contacted the Lakota people.

At first, they were wary. Yet another curious outsider?

But they soon understood that Elizabeth didn’t want to tell that story. She wanted to return it.

For two years she worked without stopping. Bureaucracy. Permits. Funding. Translations. Coordination between two governments. All to bring home a man no one had actually asked her to look for.

In 1997, the remains of Chief Long Wolf were exhumed. Lakota elders performed the sacred rites. Prayers filled that corner of foreign soil for the first time in 105 years.

And then, finally, the journey began.

Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Homecoming.

Hundreds of people gathered. Drums echoed through the hills. Warriors in traditional dress carried the coffin. Elders wept. Children listened in silence.

The warrior had returned.

No longer a sideshow.
No longer forgotten.
Only honor.

Elizabeth was there. No speech. No spotlight. Just the quiet dignity of someone who did what was right. Not because she had to. But because no one else had.

Think about it: a man reduced to an “exotic curiosity” dies alone and is buried by strangers. He could have stayed there forever, forgotten by everyone.

But a woman at a flea market decided that no, that was not the ending. That even a forgotten life deserved to go home.

Chief Long Wolf waited 103 years to see his land again.
But he saw it.

With drums, with prayers, with tears.
With love.
With truth.

And thanks to Elizabeth Knight—who proved that compassion has no borders, and that a single person, even without power, can change everything.

06/09/2026

He runs straight into the enemy line.
October 8, 1918. France. The war is grinding toward its end, but the ground is still soaked with resistance. German machine guns are tearing into advancing troops, locking everything in place.
Private Joseph Oklahombi of the Choctaw Nation doesn’t wait.
He moves.
Alone.
Rifle in hand, he charges directly toward the gunfire. No covering fire. No hesitation. Just distance closing fast between him and a position that’s already k!LLing men.
The first shots come hard. Dirt kicks up around him. The air cracks past his ears.
He keeps going.
He reaches the position and opens fire at close range. Chaos collapses into seconds. Eleven enemy soldiers fall. The rest break—shocked, disoriented, no longer in control of the ground they held minutes earlier.
Oklahombi doesn’t stop there.
He forces the survivors to surrender.
Twenty-four enemy soldiers neutralized by one man who refused to stay pinned down.
The advance moves again. The line breathes again. Because one soldier decided forward was the only direction left.
The war ends weeks later.
But recognition doesn’t come with it.
Years pass. Then decades.
His actions are remembered by those who were there—but not by the system meant to record them. Not fully. Not immediately.
It takes time for his story to surface beyond the battlefield.
Time for people to understand what one moment of absolute decision actually did.
Joseph Oklahombi goes home. Lives his life. Carries what he did quietly.
No headlines. No noise.
Just a man who stepped into fire when others couldn’t move.
Because on that day in 1918…
he didn’t wait for orders. Ẩn bớt

06/09/2026

Solomon Bond Louis, WWI Code Talker
Solomon Bond Louis (sometimes spelled Lewis) was born April 22 1898 at Hochatown, Eagle
County, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. He later moved to Bryan County. He was a Corporal
in the 142nd Infantry, Company E.
Louis, a full blood Choctaw who is credited with being the leader of the Choctaw Code Talkers
in WWI during a fierce battle in France against the Berman Army, was actually underage when
he entered the armed services to fight for his country.
Louis, a proud young Choctaw man from Bryan County, Oklahoma, attended Armstrong
Academy and when his older friends enlisted, Louis pretended to be 18 so that he, too, could
join the service.
Solomon Louis received his basic training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and was then sent to Ft. Worth
where he joined an all-Indian Company. He was a Corporal in Co E, 142nd Infantry, 36th Division.
The 36th sailed for France July 11, 1918.
Arriving at Lazarre, France, they rested a few days and went into intensive training. On
October 7, 1918, they arrived at the front lines and the following day went over the top for the
first time. The first battle and those following were brutal.
The officers of the Allied Forces had become aware that the Germans were tapping their
telephone lines. Certain Choctaw soldiers were asked to talk over the telephone in Choctaw, so
that Germans could not understand the orders. Reports say that Louis was stationed at Division
Headquarters, with Choctaw James Edwards on the other end of the telephone line out oin the
field at the front line.
The others were stationed along the line. Ben Carterby’s message came in “Go quick and tell
Col. Brewer it is hell down here where I am. The Kaiser’s crack troops are getting ready to go
over the top tomorrow. They are the Prussian guards!”
Orders were sent in Choctaw to go over the top at 6 am, ahead of the Germans, and a
message to the field artillery to send a barrage over at 5:55 am. Over five hundred prisoners
were captured in about 30 minutes that morning.

06/08/2026

The original term, shikaakwa, was adapted by French explorers as “Chicagou.” The name refers to the wild onion that once covered the region, scientifically known as Allium tricoccum, or ramp. For the tribes of the area—such as the Potawatomi, the Miami, and the Illinois—this plant was not merely a geographic marker but a vital resource. It thrived in the moist soils along the shores of Lake Michigan, releasing a pungent aroma that defined the character of the land.

The name is a reminder that the city’s founding was not an act of creation upon emptiness, but rather the appropriation of a logistical and ecological hub that was already essential to Algonquian nations. The “Wild Onion” marked a strategic transportation point—a portage—between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin. When we say “Chicago,” we continue to invoke, often unknowingly, the flora and the language of the peoples who saw abundance in that marsh long before the arrival of the first settler.

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