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.
October 9, 1979 - Documentary that explores the attempts by South Dakota Native Americans to win more complete sovereignty from state and federal governments. A collection of various interviews. Topics include Sun Dance ritual, treaties, and courts.
August 25, 1983 - MPR’s John Ragsdale reports on Heart of the Earth Survival School for Native American Indians in Minneapolis. Laura Wittstock, Heart of the Earth administrator; and Hilda Erickson, curriculum director, speak about the school’s pupose.
October 28, 1987 - Mainstreet Radio-Brainerd’s Rachel Reabe profiles Four Winds Lodge Treatment Center, a culturally based Native American chemical dependency treat program. Reabe highlights the annual sobriety powwow through various sounds and interviews.
July 28, 1988 - MPR’s Tom Meersman looks at the 20th anniversary of American Indian Movement (AIM). Report looks at the history, actions, and controversies of organization.
February 1, 1989 - MPR’s Chris Tetlin reports on a proposal to start an Indian public school district in the Twin Cities. There is debate on if it would offer a better education opportunity and experience for Native students or simply a form of segregation.
September 8, 1989 - Mainstreet Radio’s John Biewen presents the documentary “Dancing on Beat: Portrait of a Reservation Family,” which follows the daily life of an Ojibwe family on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.
September 8, 1989 - MPR’s Leif Enger Interviews students about their experiences at the Leech Lake's Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School, and educators on the need for the school.
March 7, 1990 - MPR’s Euan Kerr profiles exhibit “Building Minnesota” at Walker Art Museum. The work was created by Native American sculptor Edgar Heap of Birds. Heap of Birds created 40 metal signs, which imitate the look and lettering of public street signs. On a white background, red letters bore “the names (in English and Dakota) of the 40 Dakota men, prisoners of war, who were hung by executive order for the role they played in the Dakota-U.S. conflicts of 1862 and 1865.”
August 28, 1990 - MPR’s Stephen Smith profiles Kevin Locke, a Hunkpapa Sioux who is trying to preserve the language and art of Lakota music. Locke is one of few Native American musicians to make a profession of performing traditional flute music. The Lakota did not use written words, so their songs were recorded only in memory. The composition of these songs was within the domain of a relatively small group of people, known as the Elk Dreamers.
September 14, 1990 - MPR’s Chris Tetlin profiles Maude Kegg, an Ojibwa storyteller, folk artist, and cultural interpreter. Kegg shares life memories and her concerns over Ojibwa language being lost in the coming generations.