In recognition of 2024 Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the MPR Archive Portal presents a curated sampling of varied stories, documentaries, arts, interviews, and reports on Native people, their culture, and history.
Please note: Most content related to this topic that is contemporary or created after 2005 can be found on our main content pages of MPR News, YourClassical MPR, The Current, APM Reports, and Marketplace.
February 7, 1973 - MPR’s Marvin Granger interviews Native American advocate Ada Deer about Native American struggles, rights, and the confrontational actions taken to draw attention to broken treaties.
May 6, 1973 - Part one of the MER documentary series, A Sense of Place. Program is titled “Anishinaabe Means Original People,” and focuses on conversations with Indian people about their feelings about the place where they live.
December 16, 1973 - Ron Libertus speaks about American Indian art, Native American culture, and family et al.
February 27, 1974 - Native American activist Russell Means, speaks about the desires and needs of Native Americans at rally on the University of Minnesota campus.
August 1, 1974 - Kevin McKiernan report on the Sun Dance Ritual, a Lakota (Sioux) religious ceremony. McKiernan details the experience of traveling to and witnessing the event, held at Crow Dog's Paradise. This is the first of two reports completed.
August 30, 1974 - Agnes Lamont, mother of Buddy Lamont, who was killed at Wounded Knee in 1973, is interviewed by Kevin McKiernan. Lamont discusses Oglala Sioux on Pine Ridge Reservation.
October 21, 1975 - Vine Deloria, an expert in Indian treaties and author of "Custer Died For Your Sins" and "God is Red,” speaking at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth on Indian rights and public policy.
April 1, 1977 - As part of KCCM's Our Home Town series, this program is on Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, located in north central North Dakota, and home to Chippewa Indians. Through various interviews and music segments, program highlights Michif culture, religion, powwow dance, identity problems, the BIA, poverty, and alcoholism.
April 17, 1979 - Vine Deloria Jr., a political science professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Native American activist, attorney, and author, speaking at the eighth annual Putnam Lectureship in Social Ethics at Hamline University. Deloria Jr’s address was titled "The Natural Philosophical Tradition." Following his speech, Deloria took questions from the audience.
July 30, 1979 - MPR reporter John Ydstie presents sound portrait of a powwow celebration. Ydstie went to the White Earth Indian Reservation in Northern Minnesota and recorded various interviews and performances from the Ojibwe cultural event.