‘Red Power’ Growing In U.S.

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 8

‘Red Power’ Growing In U.S.

(By FRANK OLIVER, N.Z PA. special correspondent) WASHINGTON.

The emergence of Black Power in the United States has now been followed by signs that Red Power is on the way up. This has nothing to do with communism and everything to do with the dissatisfactions of the red man, the so-called Red Indians of the United States, But the red man is beginning to take a leaf or two out of the Black Power book.

Sociologists have for years spoken and written about the terrible conditions under which the red man lives, about his poverty, his lack of education and opportunity, the unemployment which plagues him and the generally unsatisfactory conditions prevailing on the reservations on which about two-thirds of the 650,000 surviving Indians live. For them the Great White Father has been the Bureau of Indian Affairs in this city, but a bureau is not an ideal father, as more than one writer and many more than one Indian have said in different words but with the same meaning. Indians are the wards of the bureau and as almost everyone knows history shows that wards do not get a very full family life.

Now education is coming to the younger members of the many tribes and as they learn to read they learn to think and then to speak out. They just do not like the conditions in which they live. As one newspaper said recently: older members of a tribe stamp round in their ritual rain or other dances, still wearing their feathered headdresses, but the younger members of the tribe meet at the community centre to seek ways of freeing the ted men from dependence on the white man.

Militant voices are being heard in Indian affairs all across the country, says the “Wall Street Journal," quoting Indians in New Mexico, for instance, speaking bitterly about “colonialism” and “we must go our own way—or fight anyone who tries to stop us.”

In Florida educated Indians have been taking their problems to the courts. They allege theft of their lands by the white man and demand either the return of land or compensation therefore. It begins to look as it they might get a good deal out of it.

But in the main what the Indians want is a change

from conditions which has given them the nation’s lowest standards of living, the worst health record and the highest rates in illiteracy and unemployment, in many instances they appear to be much worse off than the poorest Negroes. While Negro unemployment is about 8 per cent (as against an over all 3.5 per cent for the nation) the Indian unemployment on reservations is given as almost 40 per cent. The militant young are still small in numbers. Two youth organisations claim only about 2000 members out of a total Indian population of some 650,000, but increasing educational opportunities are adding larger numbers of educated young to the Indian population every year. There are how 5000 Indians attending college as against only 400 10 years ago, and there has been an increase in the number of high school graduates, although the total is still low by national standards. About 58 per cent of Indian children now graduate from high school as against 74 per cent for the nation as a whole. It is reported that most of the young militants are college graduates. One such graduate, a lawyer aged 24, is quoted as wanting the Great White Father to provide a guaranteed annual income for Indians to “compensate us for the theft of our lands and decades of neglect.”

The Indians do own a great deal of land, over 50 million acres, but it is invariably poor land, lacking in good top soil, minerals, timber and even water. Almost 450.000 Indians live on these reservations while about 200 000 live off the reservations. The two groups are treated quite differently. Those who live off the reservations have the same legal rights and responsibilities as other Americans. Most of those who live on reservations pay no Federal or State taxes and do not receive State services. Their schooling and housing are provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and medical care is in the hands of the United States Public Health They elect their own tribal Service.

chiefs still, but their powers are limited and their decisions subject to veto bv the bureau which, in 1968. spent s4som on Indian programmes. which works out at rough'v $lOOO aniece. This is sharply un from a few vears ago and better health services have cut down the incidence of some diseases, notablv tuberculosis, but the incidence is still far ahead of the figure of the country and. says one newspaper, conditions on many Indian reservations are worse than those in urban slums. Federal clinics are sometimes far away for some patients, who have no means of travelling up to 20

miles to get medical help. Often food is limited to bread and beans.

Most dissatisfied Indians direct their barbs at the bureau, but there is division of opinion as to what should be done about it.

Some young Indians demand the abolition of the bureau with self-government on the reservations and full tribal control over lands. Others, believed to be in the majority, want the bureau retained but want it run byIndians, the bureau continuing to provide funds but having no control over how they are spent. At present tribal councils cannot lease or sell their land without Federal approval. Ah official of the bureau in Washington said recently that it was “preparing for the day" when Indians would assume control of their own affairs, but added that the bureau believed Indians were not yet ready for that step, and had no timetable for such a change. But Indians want some kind of change and want it fairly soon. One newspaper writes of a Navaho reservation that covers much desert land in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah on which families live in windowless log and mud huts with no electricity, no plumbing and no sewerage, where water is drawn from open wells, chimneys often being only a hole in the roof and sheepskins the only bedding.

There is naturally some division of opinion among Indians as to which road they should travel, whether to preserve their racial identity or whether to seek integration with the white world. However, one advance seems to be a growing inclination to consider themselves, all Indians, as members of a single minority group rather than as many small “conquered nations.” On the integration side it is noted that a number of Indians who have left the reservations and made their way in the white world have married people of other races. Most young Indians seem

to want changes on their reservations first. They have undertaken protest marches to stress their grievances. In at least one instance there has been club-swinging and stone throwing between Indians and law enforcement officers over fishing rights. Red power seems to be on the move.