"The honorable ivory-billed woodpecker has returned from the dead and is living in a wildlife refuge in the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas. It seemed to disappear in 1944 and was long presumed extinct.
This spirit bird's reappearance 60 years later reinforces a wise instruction by Native elders: 'Never give up on anyone.'
Then and now, I think how Native peoples have been pushed out of our natural homelands and how long we have lived at the edge of extinction. The Native population hemisphere-wide was over 100 million in 1491. By 1900, it was under 1 million.
In the U.S. at the turn of last century, there were fewer than 240,000 Native people. The good news is that there were 2 million American Indians by 2000 and that Native populations are increasing in every country.
It is a miracle of survivance that there are Native people alive in sufficient numbers to assure a future as Native people."
Get the Story:
Suzan Shown Harjo: Never give up on anyone
(Indian Country Today 5/12)
Related Stories:
Harjo: Native women aren't safe in Indian
Country (04/29)
Harjo: Characteristics of the non-Indian
Indians (04/08)
Churchill tells Suzan Shown Harjo: Kiss my
--- (02/17)
Suzan Shown Harjo: Churchill
went 'tribe-shopping' (2/11)
Anti-fry
bread column stirs Indian Country passions (02/07)
Harjo: Eliminate fry bread and other 'Indian'
foods (01/21)
Harjo: The 'good' Indians
versus the 'hostiles' (12/17)
Harjo:
Pine Ridge election about character (10/29)
Harjo: Anderson harassed Indian reporter over BIA
death (07/02)
Stay Connected
Contact Us
indianz@indianz.com202 630 8439 (THEZ)
Search
Top Stories
Trending in News
1 Tribes rush to respond to new coronavirus emergency created by Trump administration
2 'At this rate the entire tribe will be extinct': Zuni Pueblo sees COVID-19 cases double as first death is confirmed
3 Arne Vainio: 'A great sickness has been visited upon us as human beings'
4 Arne Vainio: Zoongide'iwin is the Ojibwe word for courage
5 Cayuga Nation's division leads to a 'human rights catastrophe'
2 'At this rate the entire tribe will be extinct': Zuni Pueblo sees COVID-19 cases double as first death is confirmed
3 Arne Vainio: 'A great sickness has been visited upon us as human beings'
4 Arne Vainio: Zoongide'iwin is the Ojibwe word for courage
5 Cayuga Nation's division leads to a 'human rights catastrophe'
More Stories
BIA refutes criticism of land-into-trust checklist New study cites alarming rates of Native HIV cases
News Archive
2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000