JOHN TRUDELL:
NOT AN ACTIVIST, POET OR MUSICIAN, BUT SIMPLY A HUMAN
Thursday September 27, 2007
Produced by
Lyla Johnston, El Prado, NM, with Cultural Energy:
A non-profit Organization Creating media Voices for Youth, Arts, & Activism for Northern New Mexico
"The life of John Trudell has meandered and wandered through reality
led by a fiery passion for justice and truth. All that he is, can never
be written or labeled, and the heart in his chest points to one thing,
which is, not that he is an activist or political organizer, not a poet
or a musician, not an actor or an icon, John Trudell is, as he puts it,
a human."
So begins Dineh (Navajo) youth reporter Lyla Johnston's interview with
John Trudell. "The life of John Trudell: born in Nebraska in 1946, he
goes to Vietnam in 1963, and when he returns he pursues many forms of
Native American activism, and eventually becomes the spokesman for the
All Tribes occupation of Alcatraz Island.
He later serves as chairman of the American Indian Movement (AIM).
In 1979, Trudell went to Washington DC to burn the American flag, as soldiers do when it has been desecrated. Only minutes after he had burned the flag, his house mysteriously caught fire on the other side of the country. His pregnant wife, Trina Trudell, his 3 children, and his mother in law, tragically perished."
In the interview, Lyla explores the history of John's activism and how John's life changed with his family's tragedy. John explains his philosophy toward treaty law, human rights, politics, "there are no revolutionary solutions - only evolutionary solutions," believing versus thinking, and the importance of values and spirituality. John tells the younger generation:
"don't believe them, they're lying - they're all lying, the political system is lying, the military system is lying, the economic system, the religious system, they are all lying. Be careful who you believe. Think more - believe less." John tells about his new music album and his effort to bring national health care for all women and children: "I don't think a culture is a culture, if they don't look out for the women and children."
Lyla Johnston of Taos , New Mexico, is a freshman engineering student at Stanford University on a full scholarship. She is a radio producer, an activist poet, and youth organizer. Her grandmother, Alice Gilmore, is one of the sheepherding grandmothers resisting the building of a coal electric plant on her grazing land at Desert Rock, New Mexico. Lyla's radio show "Native Momentum," including poetry and coverage of the struggle against the coal plant and Uranium mining on Dineh lands, can be heard on-line at culturalenergy.org. Cultural Energy is an independent community based media organization starting a new educational FM radio station for the rural pueblo and acequia communities of Northern New Mexico.
--
Cultural Energy
A Non-Profit Organization Creating Media Voices
for Youth, Arts & Activism for Northern New Mexico
192 Blueberry Hill, HCR74 Box 21912, El Prado, NM 87529
505-758-9791 energy@culturalenergy.org
http://www.culturalenergy.org
Left KU Channel
September 27, 2007 3 PM EST
Total time: 29:00
Listen here
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