For allies, campaigners and supporters. A model ally, 'Joan of Art' Mondale
Protecting Mondale at a powwow, even one indoors in a contained room, presented many challengesBy Suzan Shown Harjo
Indian Country Today
indiancountrytoday.com Five years ago, this month, artist and author Joan Mondale walked on at 83 (1930 – 2014). Smart, talented and good-humored, she was a beloved ally of Native peoples and such an arts/culture champion that she was called “Joan of Art.” Married to U.S. Vice President Walter F. “Fritz” Mondale, she served as the Second Lady from 1977 to 1981. They lived in Washington, D.C., while Fritz served Minnesota in the Senate from 1964 to 1977, and in Tokyo, when he was U.S. Ambassador to Japan (1993-1996). Walter Mondale remains one of our most consistent champions of Native rights and Joan Mondale was an active partner in that work. A potter with a college degree in history and fine arts, Mondale had broad and deep knowledge of visual, written and performing arts, and knew much about the cultures and peoples who produced them. While in DC, she was a docent for the National Gallery of Art and conducted tours for that and other museums and art venues. Over her long professional career and history of volunteerism, she worked for and sat on boards of some of the most prestigious art institutions and showcases in the U.S. As Second Lady, Mondale exhibited Native artists’ small works on walls and pedestals of the U.S. Naval Observatory, which is the official residence of the U.S. Vice President. She displayed Native artists’ larger works in the mansion’s sculpture garden and elsewhere on the grounds, amidst work by Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson and other superstar sculptors of the day. She also showcased Native cultural performers and held social gatherings and conversations with artists and culture and history bearers. Mondale also carried important messages to her husband, to President Jimmy Carter and friends in Congress about fellowships, recognition and funding for Native arts and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She advocated for Indian education and health programs and for keeping U.S. treaty promises. And, she cautioned about the nationwide network of anti-Indian, anti-treaty hate groups. In 1984, when Fritz was the Democratic nominee for president, Joan often appeared as his campaign surrogate at meetings, events and rallies. Elegant and down to earth, she was a knowledgeable policy spokeswoman and popular campaign substitute for her husband. At the start of that same year, I had been selected as Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians. I was serving with my good friend, Joseph B. DeLaCruz, who was President of both NCAI and the Quinault Indian Nation on the Pacific Coast of Washington. He and I knew and admired the Mondales and invited either one or both to address the NCAI Convention in Spokane, Washington. Fritz and the Republican invitees were not available that week, but Mondale was free on the afternoon and early evening of NCAI’s annual convention powwow and traditional feast. Some of Candidate Mondale’s Native policy statements were drafted by my Cheyenne brother, W. Richard West, Jr., R. Sargent Shriver and me. West and Shriver were partners in the Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver law firm in DC, where I was Legislative Liaison immediately before going to NCAI. We drafted remarks for Joan Mondale to make at the NCAI Convention powwow, and her statement had been approved by the campaign. On the afternoon of the event, DeLaCruz and I met with Mondale and her Secret Service protective detail in the host hotel’s large ballroom, where the powwow was set to start a few hours later. The Secret Service agents swept the area for potential hazards and met with us about the flow of the event and security accommodations. Protecting Mondale at a powwow, even one indoors in a contained room, presented many challenges, the easiest of which to resolve were entrance and egress doors for safety precautions of all kinds and for all people at the powwow.
Congress, which continues to deal with Oliphant’s disastrous effects, took a huge step in the 2013 Violence Against Women Act Amendments, with the recognition of Native Nations’ inherent sovereignty and jurisdiction regarding perpetrators of domestic violence in Indian Country. At present, the VAWA reauthorization is hung up in Congress, and further delays threaten to make reservations safe for non-Native predators, again. Gorton as Attorney General was on a mission to abolish Indian treaty-fishing rights through state anti-tribal practices, including countless beatings on the water and arrests of Native people and allies. The state and Gorton were handed a huge defeat by the Supreme Court’s 1979 ruling in U.S. v. Washington, which upheld the treaty fishing rights of Native Nations in the Pacific Northwest, and chided the state for its recalcitrance. Senator and Vice President Mondale was on the Native side of the protracted litigation. The Carter-Mondale Administration defended the federal and tribal side and won. The 1984 referendum was a way for Gorton and the hate groups to begin to undo the 1979 ruling and follow-on litigation, which is ongoing. As Senator, Gorton was trying to convince colleagues to accomplish what he was unable to win in court. Several senators said he was so aggressive and openly hostile about Native peoples that they shunned him, treating him as the one-termer he turned out to be. In 1984, he was supporting the hate groups’ state referendum, as well as their efforts to defeat tribal fishing and hunting in the Great Lakes region. The NCAI convention was our opportunity to rally support for the exercise of treaty rights. The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians planned a series of awareness-raising activities, and all the local planners were working overtime. I produced a concert in Spokane where Native musicians called for the defeat of Initiative 456, including those from the Anishinaabe, Colville, Dine’ (Navajo), Isleta Pueblo, Kaw, Mescalero Apache, Muscogee (Creek) and Sisseton-Wahpeton Nations, including Tom Bee, Jim Boyd, Sharon Burch, A. Paul Ortega, Jim Pepper, Keith Secola, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, XIT and others. Mondale was aware of the stakes and knew she was representing all those U.S. officials who did not condone the agenda of Gorton and the hate groups, who opposed the anti-treaties initiative and who worked to fulfill U.S. treaty promises. She was well-versed in the Reagan Administration’s schemes to privatize the Native Nations’ resources, to turn over control of money and education to banks and states and to rip out the wires of federal-tribal services and funding that kept the U.S. side of the bargain to provide programs in perpetuity in exchange for gaining lands over which to govern. Mondale acted accordingly, in service of the high purpose. She was not ego-driven or spotlight seeking. I’m sure it never occurred to her to forge ahead with her family story or to ask us to validate it. It never occurred to DeLaCruz and me to humor Mondale by seeming to validate her family story. Today, there are some political operatives who insist that Native peoples should support important allies’ claimed “Indian-ness” to avoid alienating those in positions to help or harm us. We gave our best and most straightforward advice because Mondale was a valued ally and deserved our honesty and because it was the kind thing to do. We recognized that she, like Native peoples and all those with diasporic histories, was seeking to establish kinship and looking for relatives, which is what we do for our ancestors. Joan Mondale and Fritz continued to advocate for our interests and promote our artists’ work. She never asked a Native Nation or family to adopt her or to vouch for her family story. She was an ally of the first order and one who is remembered with respect and fondness in many Native families and homelands. Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee, is a writer, curator and policy advocate, who has helped Native Peoples protect and recover sacred places and over one million acres of lands. Guest Curator and Editor of the award-winning exhibition (2014-2021) and book (2014), Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations, she has been awarded a 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian honor. Note: This article originally appeared on Indian Country Today on February 22, 2019."How often we're blind to our own talent:" RIP Joan Mondale http://t.co/5AVtBBm1n2 pic.twitter.com/TUHniSPP9n
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) February 4, 2014
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