Good Friday on the Rez

by David Hugh Bunnell

  Alliance police chief Verlin Hutton explained to Mark that the “situation” with his daughter was one of those unproveable he-said, she-said encounters.

  Monroe wasn’t about to go away quietly. Wanting to protect his daughter and prevent similar tragedies from happening to other Lakota families, Mark founded the American Indian Council. Using the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, which Monroe studied during the long days of his rehab in an army hospital recovering from wounds he suffered in the Korean War (his left hand and leg were shattered by machine gun bullets near Ma-Jon), Monroe’s council would provide services to local Indians and use nonviolent resistance tactics to assert their rights.

  Monroe’s first action as chairman of the new organization was to face down three farmers on the school board of a one-room schoolhouse in Berea, Nebraska, ten miles north of Alliance. A white boy was taunting an Indian boy, and when the white boy called him a nigger, the Indian boy shoved the older boy, knocking him to the classroom floor. The teacher punished the Indian boy by spanking him with a yardstick. Mark threatened legal action. He made it very clear to the Berea School Board that a civil lawsuit would be filed in state court in Lincoln if they did not suspend the white boy and reprimand the teacher and make her apologize to the Indian boy. Surprisingly, the farmers capitulated.

  Emboldened, Monroe took a giant leap when he filed to run for Alliance City Magistrate & Justice of the Peace in an upcoming election, challenging longtime judge Nell “Nellie” Johnstone, who had been a fixture in county and city courts since 1925. Over and over and over again, Judge Johnstone sentenced the same Indians to the Box Butte County jail for intoxication, never considering that there might be better ways to reduce public drunkenness.

  During the campaign, Mark got threatening phone calls, and someone tried to firebomb his house, but he made a good showing. He lost the election but got six hundred votes, more than half of Judge Johnstone’s tally. Most important, the sheer dignity of how he campaigned gained him respect from some of the more tolerant white citizens, and from that moment on, Mark Monroe became the “go-to Indian” in Alliance, the liaison between two cultures. The city fathers provided Mark a building for his organization, an old barracks left in Alliance after the U.S. Army abandoned the airbase, which they moved to south Alliance for him. From this new headquarters, Monroe sponsored a Native American Alcoholics Anonymous program, an Indian Boy Scout troop, a native arts club, and a medical screening service. He also started a community garden, bus service to the hospital in Pine Ridge, and a meals program, and built a sunshade for powwows.

  With his crew cut, old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses, clean-shaven face, dress shirt, and tie, Mark Monroe hardly projected the image of a radical activist. He preferred to work within the system, having faith that over time he could warm the white man’s heart. But the brutal killing of Raymond Yellow Thunder shook him to his very soul—some whites were apparently so evil, he figured their hearts had calcified; nothing could change this. Mark worried that Yellow Thunder’s killers would never be convicted in Alliance, where Indians died like flies in the city jail and no one seemed to care. While Monroe knew the risks when he invited AIM leaders to meet with him at his American Indian Center to plan a protest strategy, something had to be done.

  Five days before the start of the trial, on May 19, 1972, Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and Vernon Bellecourt, with their entourage of long-haired big-city Indians, some with revolvers tucked in the waistbands of their blue jeans, descended upon Monroe’s sedate community center. They drank coffee and devoured the big platter of doughnuts he brought in from the local bakery where he worked the night shift. Sitting in chairs, on desktops, and even on the floor, they began the meeting as if he weren’t present. Dumbfounded, Monroe listened as the AIM militants said they were going to demand that Alliance provide food and indoor shelter for up to two thousand protesters expected to arrive the following day. They wanted the use of a city facility for meetings and press conferences, and were going to demand that Alliance close the liquor stores during the trial. Most bizarre, they were going to demand the right to address students and parents at the Alliance High School graduation, coming up in just two days at the school football field, called Bulldog Stadium.

  Mark was impressed with AIM’s audacity, but he was not amused by their boisterousness, misplaced irreverence, and contempt … and especially their disrespect for him. He began to think it had been a mistake to invite them. AIM would bring violence, and the cause for dignity for Indian citizens in Alliance could be set back years. Mark kept his objections to himself, but he was to break with AIM before the trial was over.

  The following day, the AIM leaders walked into Mayor Glen Worley’s office with their list of demands. No one had told them that in Alliance, the position of mayor was largely ceremonial, as most decision-making powers rested with the city manager. Not surprisingly, Mayor Worley was a bit confused as to how to handle these types of requests, but he agreed to get back to the leaders by three p.m., which he did. The city denied the demand for food and shelter and suggested that AIM ask the local churches. It was OK for AIM to use the Alliance City Auditorium, an old basketball court with a small stage at one end, floor and balcony seating, and a hallway in front. It would be available for meetings and press conferences only, not for cooking or sleeping. AIM members and their followers were free to set up a camp in Bower Field, the baseball park near the train tracks and the local Indian neighborhood. And the city said they would set up a Human Relations Board to better the understanding between Indians and white citizens in Alliance.

  If the city fathers thought these decisions would be well received and would lower tension, they were dead wrong. AIM felt insulted, especially about the campsite. Dennis Banks complained, “They got us down in the slums, in what the honkies call Indian Park.” At this point, the ranks of the protesters had grown to about five hundred. Still not the two thousand Banks had projected, but sizeable, easily the largest demonstration Alliance had ever seen—five hundred Indians beating their drums, singing, yelling out slogans as they leisurely marched from the auditorium up the brick street to Box Butte Avenue, past Gibson’s Discount Center, the Newberry Hardware Company, Art & Jerry’s Boot Shop, the candy store, and the theater playing J. W. Coop, a modern-day cowboy movie directed by and starring Cliff Robertson. An unnerving sight to the few Alliance citizens not hiding out in their basements—all those strong-looking young Indian men, defiant, unafraid. Indian women too, with their braided hair, beautifully beaded earrings and necklaces, confident, equally proud. Whatever happened to those nice, docile Indians Alliance was used to seeing?

  Once the protesters arrived at the neoclassical citadel that serves as the Box Butte County courthouse, easily the grandest building in Alliance, they broke into two groups. One group carried a large buffalo-skin powwow drum through the front doors into the expansive courthouse foyer, where they set it up on the floor on top of the mosaic tile Great Seal of the State of Nebraska. They began drumming and singing war songs. Their piercing, shrill voices and the booming of the drum bounced off the marble walls and up the two flights of stairs, vibrated frosted windows on office and courtroom doors. It was a primeval euphony that scared the bejesus out of the old-lady county librarian, freaked out the clerks in the Veterans Affairs office, even spooked the lawyers and judges. A court officer locked the door to his office and hid behind his desk. Out on the courthouse lawn, the other protesters headed for the tall flagpole and brazenly lowered the American flag. They raised their own blue, yellow, white, and red–striped AIM flag and turned the American flag upside down, flying it below the AIM flag. The county sheriff, Don Underwood, and his deputies dared not interfere; they stood nearby, helplessly watching, taking photos. The protesters stayed a few hours, listened to speeches, announced that they would be back in bigger numbers the following day, the first day of jury selection.

  * * *

  The part of Highway 2 I am on now is nearly as desolate as the Mari
Sandoz Trail, too far away from Alliance for me to see the city lights. With no other cars on the road, it is so dark that the beams of my headlights extend only a few feet before being completely absorbed, until a long coal train headed east breaks up the blackness—but only for a minute or two, as it is traveling very fast. In a few miles, I’ll be near the old army airbase. During World War II, my dad was in France with the 86th Infantry, so my mom moved to Denver, where she lived with her sister and worked in an airplane factory. Consequently, I didn’t hear much about what Alliance was like during those years, but I’ve always been curious. Nearly all the local young men were fighting distant battles while their wives and girlfriends were mostly left to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, thousands of other young men were stationed five miles outside of town learning how to jump safely out of airplanes. I imagine they got weekend passes. There must have been quite a party scene in Alliance, with all those horny young men and lonely young women.

  Counting himself one of Mark Monroe’s friends, my dad was one of the few citizens sympathetic to the Lakota—he was interested in their history, and tried to understand their struggles. When Monroe needed funding for his mobile health van service, Dad wrote letters on Mark’s behalf to the governor and the Nebraska legislature. In his newspaper columns, he advocated treatment for Indian alcoholics instead of jail time and encouraged school officials to shut down the “Opportunity Room” at Grandview Elementary School, where Indian students were warehoused without a teacher, just a lowly paid supervisor. Here, they spent their days drawing, coloring, reading comics, and marking on the chalkboard. It was the Alliance school system’s way of obeying the state law that required all children, including Native Americans, to stay in school until age sixteen. Still, Dad was defensive about Alliance’s racism; he thought most of its citizens were fair-minded, and he did not like it when Russell Means called Alliance “the most racist town in the number one racist state in America.” Seeing the American flag flying upside down was also offensive to him, as it was to most people in Alliance, including Monroe. No one bought the explanation that this was a symbol of distress—this was a clear provocation that would not win AIM any friends. My dad stayed as neutral as he could, covered the events of the day, got to know most of the AIM leaders. He sat through every minute of the trial, providing his readers thorough and remarkably unbiased commentary.

  The day before the trial, I was in Alliance, having driven down in the morning from Kyle with Linda and our daughter. After leaving them with Linda’s mother, I went to the courthouse, arriving shortly after AIM hoisted their flag above the upside-down American flag, in time to hear Russell Means speak to a crowd of several hundred AIM protesters, local Indians, and a few sympathetic whites. Convinced that the Hare brothers would never be convicted, he called upon AIM supporters across the country to come to Alliance, to occupy the courthouse once the “not guilty” verdicts came in, to effectively shut down the town.

  “Racists don’t convict racists,” Means said. “Not in Mississippi, not in South Dakota, and certainly not in the number one racist state, Nebraska.”

  That night I went with my dad to Bulldog Stadium for the high school graduation. It was a perfect spring evening; a few parents wore suits, the students had their caps and gowns, but most of the spectators, who sat on the concrete bleachers built into the side of a hill, were in shirtsleeves. The 166 graduating seniors were on the field in folding chairs. In full regalia, the marching band was positioned behind them, as was the high school choir, standing on risers. Dad and I sat in the front row, in a section reserved for the press—usually a reporter from the Times-Herald and another from Alliance’s KCOW radio station. On this occasion, however, there were also correspondents from the Scottsbluff Star-Herald, the Omaha World-Herald, and the Kansas City Star. They were in town to cover the trial and had heard there might be a demonstration or disruption at the ceremony.

  As at graduations taking place all across America, the evening began with a processional. First the band marched in, followed by the choir, and then the seniors. I got comfortable on my bleacher seat, settling in for what I feared would be a long, boring evening. About midway through the drawn-out diploma presentations, Dad and I walked down to the cinder track that circled the football field, then over to the front entrance gate. A crowd of AIM supporters stood just outside, held back by a small contingent of cops and sheriff’s deputies. The Alliance school superintendent, Harold Petersen, was huddled with the mayor, a group of school officials, and school board members, discussing what they should do. One of the board members, Keith Sorum, said to my dad, “That Bellecourt guy wants to address the crowd. We don’t think graduation is an appropriate place for such a speech.”

  “Maybe so,” my dad advised, “but there are enough protesters here to keep people from leaving by blocking the gate.”

  “What do you think we should do?”

  “I think you should tell the crowd that the Indians want to speak to them. Tell them they are free to stay or free to go.”

  Much to my surprise, Sorum agreed. He discussed the idea with Petersen and the others, and they were on board. I was proud of my dad. He maneuvered the reluctant city leaders to do the right thing, preventing an ugly scene that could have easily turned violent.

  AIM’s minister of information, Vernon Bellecourt, wearing a deerskin cape, his strong facial features tempered by dominating dark aviator glasses, the ends of his braids tied with rabbit pelts and eagle feathers, resolutely strolled up to the speaker’s platform. The others followed behind him, standing or sitting in the grass—they looked serious, dignified. Dad mentioned to me that none of the protesters were drunk or seemed to be drinking, which he thought for Indians was remarkable. This very piece of turf they were standing upon had once been their land, and if the treaty laws were ever enforced, it could conceivably revert to them. Sadly, most of the students filed out before Bellecourt could begin. The trickle of people headed for the exit soon turned into a stream. However, this did not deter him.

  “You have prospered,” he said, “but the Indians living in Alliance live in terrible poverty. Two Indian students graduated here tonight … finally, but for all the years before, you did not have a single Indian graduate. We are not a violent people. We are the sovereign people of this land. We are not here for confrontation. We have been asked to come here by your Indian citizens because there is a trial going on that is important to them. The American characteristic we oppose is the one that brought about the massacre at Sand Creek in Colorado and Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Sadly, it is the same characteristic that still lives today, most recently responsible for the My Lai massacre, and unfortunately for the death of our brother Raymond Yellow Thunder.

  “The same Great Spirit places us all on this earth, and he wants us to live in peace. Peace and justice is all we ask.”

  Bellecourt ended his talk by thanking all who had stayed, saying they gave him the feeling that there was hope for America in treating his people justly. Those remaining clapped, a few even cheered; there were no catcalls. As Bellecourt was leaving, he motioned my dad to come over, shook his hand, and talked to him in a quiet voice so others couldn’t hear. Of course, as soon as I could, I asked Dad what he had said.

  “He said, ‘Good thing it was me talking and not Russell Means or Dennis Banks; you’d have a riot on your hands.’”

  * * *

  At last Villa VW and I are in Alliance; it has been a long day, with too much driving. On top of the Third Street overpass, I see multiple train tracks stretching for miles in both directions; huge flat railroad switching yards eerily lit up by powerful floodlights on top of towering steel poles, similar to those you might find at a Major League baseball park. Chuckling to myself, I think, So this is what energy independence looks like. The railroad boom is revitalizing small-town America; it’s an efficient way to transport oil and coal; why do we need pipelines?

  Once I’m back at street level, it is a straight shot to Ken and Dales
, just seven blocks from here. I visualize a nice, cozy stool for myself at the bar, away from the front door and near the TV, tuned to an NBA playoff game or at least ESPN SportsCenter. Ken and Dales holds a special place in my psyche, much like the Holiday Inn Express. When I’m in Alliance, if I’m not enjoying some over-the-top Lebanese food at my former mother-in-law’s house, I go to Ken and Dales. I go there for down-home comfort food, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s not exactly Le Bernardin; Chef Ripert would gag on the French-fried shrimp, obviously frozen, and the waiters at Smith & Wollensky would be extremely apologetic if they had to bring you one of Ken and Dales rib eyes. But name a fancy New York restaurant that offers you the choice of three outstanding side dishes with every entree. Ken and Dales is a quaint little place in an old square brick building, the kind of place Guy Fieri might feature on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives if he ever gets to western Nebraska. Sitting at the bar, drinking a perfectly shaken-not-stirred Grey Goose martini, even though I haven’t been here in eight years, I again order the shrimp.