JOHN TRUDELL: Good evening, this is John Trudell from Radio Free Alcatraz welcoming you to Indian Land Alcatraz on behalf of the Indians of All Tribes. And tonight we have with us Grace Thorpe, who you may remember was with us the first evening that we were on, about a week ago. And Grace Thorpe will be working in public relations for the Alcatraz movement.
But before we get to that I would like to kind of mention that we have, besides Grace Thorpe, who is in public relations, we also have our coordinator, who is Earl Livermore, and our assistant coordinator Dean Travers, and we’ll have these two gentlemen on the show at a later date. We have a curriculum committee set up, but we have no one named for this committee yet. The curriculum committee is going to be composed of I believe five or six individuals and we’re going to try and set up a training and academic Indian university. Part of the work at the university would be like what the BIA has now. On the job training. And then we would have at the academic portion of the university, we would have Indian history and things like tribal organization. And also we’ll have a spiritual center, and an Indian Museum, and an ecology center. This would all fall under the curriculum. And also under the curriculum is the traveling university and we hope to get this into effect before, well soon, sometime this year, hopefully, well 1970. And the traveling university would be set up to visit Indian reservations in an attempt to preserve the culture. And they would do filming, recordings on tape and paper. And kind of reserve this for posterity and also at the same time it would show how the BIA is kind of falling down on the job. And so well, let’s get to Grace right now. Grace could you explain a little bit about what you would be doing in public relations?
GRACE THORPE: Well I believe so John. I think our particular job in public relations is to see that the local community certainly gets information about what’s going on here at Alcatraz, but also, because we have so much interest from all our Indian tribes all over the North and South American continents, certainly to see that we get information to those groups. And of course to the regular white community. And by the information, I mean that would be available is what our aims, what our goals are, it’s just as you are saying here, your universities. And my particular job will be to publicize anything of any importance that might happen here on Alcatraz, as a matter of fact important things happen here almost every minute. But certainly, every day we would have something that we would be able to release to the newspapers.
Well, we’ve got the arrow, so to speak, and have enough to make the head. I think it would help if we had the cooperation of the reservation Indians and the Indians in the urban areas, along with the various Indian organizations like the National Indian Youth Council or the National Congress of American Indians.
Absolutely. All groups. One of the first things John that I have in my mind in starting out, of course we will have a committee that will meet, will determine you know what avenues we will be following in public relations. But one of the very first that I thought would be of importance, I thought I’d do a color slide presentation. It would take about a half an hour which would be available to the service clubs and we would have our Indian people that go out within the San Francisco area for these talks.
Also now, will we be sending speakers out to the various colleges?
Yes, I thought that’s what will be my first project. First I have to get back to Arizona and close out my house and my business there and then come back. My very first project as far as I’m concerned would be to establish a speaker’s bureau, and I have taken about 200 slide pictures since I’ve been here and they would be suitable to use, you know, with a projector and cover slide presentation.
You’re giving up what you have in Arizona then?
Well I don’t really feel that I’m giving up too much. I think I’m probably gaining many things along the way.
I’m sure that there are many of us that feel that way or else we wouldn’t be here. With this also, now with public relations, will you work with any funds? Soliciting any funds for the…?
Yes I will. I would be responsible for perhaps trying to get funds to keep the operation Alcatraz in business.
Yeah, I know Dean Chavers told me this morning we received some mining stock. Pretty good sum. I’m not free to give the exact amount.
Yes, you know I did remember him mentioning that, some copper. Some copper shares.
And the man that donated it, we want to thank him for the donation. He gave it to us for the betterment of all Indian people, which to him is good for all people. The funds from the mining stock, if it’s handled right, there’s more money to come. So this is kind of something to look forward to. Now that wouldn’t fall in your area would it?
Well yes, because probably along with making speeches and all I would be going to talk and give this color slide presentation to different foundations and perhaps to different industries. So the color slide presentation would be available to other people, the regular service clubs, like your lions and rotaries and business organizations within the community. And if it’s successful, we could make arrangements, if they paid expenses and all, to send people all over the United States.
I think we’re going to have a need for that. To send people all over the United States because right now the people on the West Coast, it’s very easy for them to identify with what we’re doing, especially in the state of California because we’re right here and they can come up. I see the tourist boat go by every day to watch and see what we’re doing out here. But the people even in Washington, the state of Washington and Oregon, they don’t really know that much about what we are doing. One of the gentlemen on the island was telling me this afternoon that he called his brother-in-law who is connected with the Federation of Tribes in Washington and he said that they didn’t really know what it was all about here. They supported us with what they did know. But they can’t really get out and actively support us because of the BIA. You know there are many reservations that have to worry about suffering the consequences of misbehaving.
Yes, that’s very true.
And as long as we’re on that subject. I’m really down on the Bureau of Indian Affairs because they’ve done so much harm. In my own personal point of view they have done more harm than they have good for the last 70 years, well, ever since it’s been set up Do you have any opinions about the BIA?
Well the only opinion that I might have John, concerning the BIA is, what would you replace it with? And that is what might frighten me. You know if we all complain too much about BIA and the BIA gets tossed out then what would happen? Would that mean termination for our Indian reservations? This is the thing that enters into my mind. Of course I don’t feel that they have done the job that they should do in a nation as wealthy as the United States of America for heaven’s sakes, I mean to have our children come from the reservation schools with only a, what is it a fifth grade education, compared to a tenth grade on the national average. Why it’s ridiculous.
Yeah I read in the book Our Brother’s Keeper that the longer an Indian student stays in a BIA school the further behind he becomes in education compared as a whole with the outside society. But as far as replacing the BIA, like you say, it is the lesser of two evils.
Perhaps maybe it could be placed under a different category. You know I believe the National Congress of American Indians, one of the resolutions in October, voted to have it placed by itself under a secretary directly in the Department of Interior rather than being under, or directly under the Department of Interior, in other words, establish a separate section just for Indians.
Another suggestion for them is, we’ve got educated Indians, you know. Maybe they ought to let some Indians get in there and try running the BIA. Because you’ve got to be Indian and you’ve got to live Indian to know what the Indian problems are. The BIA, all that I see from the BIA is that they hire a lot of people and the people stick around for 20 or 30 years, retire, take their monthly check. I think to a large degree that’s a lot of the concern. I mean, I didn’t want to put you on the spot or anything.
Oh that’s alright I like to be put on the spot. I like to stand up and be counted any time.
Oh good. We have to draw our line somewhere you know as to what we’re going to stand up for. Well, I want to wish you good luck with the public relations.
Thank you
I think you’ll do a good job with it. We need it. This is our first really big attempt at organization.
I think as a matter fact, I would like to say this, and publicly to our listening audience. The job that you people have done here, I think it’s absolutely fantastic. I mean this in all sincerity.
Thank you. We’ve got a lot to lose and a lot to win.
Yes, you still have a rough road to travel on further, that’s true.
We’ve been over a lot of rough roads in the past so what’s one more to add to the list. Now, when will you be taking charge of the public relations?
Well if the committee that’s supposed to meet tonight approves of the staffing, then I’m gonna fly tomorrow to Phoenix and then I’ll settle my affairs there and then I’ll drive back, you know, with my car. So I’ll be ready to go on the job probably Monday or Tuesday. Then I’ll have to look for an apartment or someplace to stay after I get here. I wish I could operate from here but of course we have no telephone. I’m not even sure whether we have electricity, right?
We have electricity tonight. I don’t know what happened but it’s here so I can’t knock it. As a matter of fact I’d like to apologize for last night’s confusion about the generator that we had running in here and it was pretty chaotic mass confusion. I had Jonny Bearcub. She came in last night and we shouted at each other a lot. We like each other, we just couldn’t hear. She couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t hear her. That was the big problem we had last night and when I spoke to Jonny last night she mentioned something about her reservation in Montana. That the government has a factory there to give the Indians employment.
Oh, what reservation is she from John? Blackfoot?
I don’t remember. They make M-16 rifles there.
Oh, that sounds interesting.
Yeah well they only make a dollar-sixty an hour though, and only one person from a family can work there, so.
How many do they employ? Is this a brand new factory that just opened up recently?
I don’t know. I imagine so, if they’re making M-16s. Well it’s almost 7:30. One more thing I’d like to say that if anyone wants to send any questions concerning the Alcatraz movement. If you have any questions that we haven’t touched upon. And I know there are many. Just write a letter to myself John Trudell care of KPFA FM 2207 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley California 94704 and we’ll try and get all these questions answered. Now we’re going to expand our programming here, we’re going to develop it much further. It’s taking a little time to get all of our resources out but we’ll have some pretty heavy programming coming on here in the near future. And Grace, I’d like to thank you for being here tonight.
Oh thank you for asking me. It’s a pleasure, and the very very best of luck on your program John.
OK thank you. And this program was brought to you by the courtesy of the Pacifica Networks and on behalf of the Indians of All Tribes from Indian Land Alcatraz. I’d like to wish you a good night. ~
SOURCE: https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-28-5717m0482m