MPR Archive presents a collection of varied Native topics in and around Minnesota. Stories include interviews, commentary, events, speeches, documentaries, and reports.
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.
March 18, 1978 - On this regional public affairs program, guests Ray Arveson, superintendent of Schools for Minneapolis; and W. Harry Davis, Minneapolis school board member, examine the school district's desegregation plan. Topics include compliance of Judge Larson order, magnet programs, and interests of minority groups.
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.
September 20, 1979 - American Indian writer Jamake Highwater talks to a group of TV producers, artists and business people attending Minneapolis Conference on Children's Television Programming, sponsored by Action for Children's Television, an advocacy group based in Boston.
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.
May 21, 1980 - MPR’s Dan Olson reports on opening of first American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center scheduled to open in Minneapolis. Olson interviews Clyde Bellecourt, former American Indian movement activist and one of the founders of the Indian-controlled survival schools in the Twin Cities.
August 12, 1982 - MPR’s Dan Olson reports on fight to keep open Little Earth, a housing project of 212 units of relatively inexpensive housing located at Franklin and Cedar in Minneapolis. It is also one of the centers of the Minneapolis Indian community. Report includes commentary from Little Earth board member Clyde Bellecourt and Minneapolis Mayor Don Fraser.
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.
November 22, 1984 - MPR’s Doug Hamilton interviews Ron Libertus, of the Ojibwe Nation, on his thoughts on Indian studies and Thanksgiving. Libertus discusses the concept of “giving thanks.”