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Dennis Banks passed away on October 29, 2017. On November 1, 2017 I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI for any files related to Banks. Most of the FBI files related to the American Indian Movement have been public for a number of years but I was curious to see if the FBI would release anything new Banks following his death. After I filed the request the only thing I heard was a notice saying my request was overly broad and I could reduce the scope to enable faster processing. ...

Screenshot of Article detailing Native Rock Band

I’m in Saint Paul, Minnesota for the Western History Association’s annual conference and to explore the archives at the Minnesota Historical Society related to the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee (WKLDOC for short). It’s an expansive archive that collects 149 boxes related to the organization that defended participants in the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973. Much of it is outside the purview of my dissertation (thankfully I don’t have to read the box upon box of legal proceedings), and given that I only have two days to spelunk through the entire archive, I had to make choices about what I would and would not look at. ...

There’s a fair share of rodeo contestants who have parlayed their time in rodeo into a singing career. Probably most notable is Chris LeDoux, one of the inspirations for Oklahoma State’s own Garth Brooks, who won the 1976 bareback championship at the National Finals Rodeo and sold records out of his truck at rodeo events in the hopes of supporting his rodeo career. LeDoux retained a cult following on the rodeo circuit until Brooks’ debut album in 1989 and the song “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)” about an aging rodeo contestant who only had “The worn out tape of Chris LeDoux, lonely women and bad booze” pushed him to a wider audience. Yet as evidenced by Armond Duck Chief’s performance at the Indian National Finals Rodeo, the hard scramble life on the rodeo circuit can provide material for countless songs and aspiring songwriters. ...

While conducting some research on Leon Russell I managed to come across a gem of a Rolling Stone article from February of 1972. In response to the destruction of four airliners in 1970 by Palestinian guerrillas, Richard Nixon implemented an anti-hijacking program which RS panned as ineffective and setting “a dangerous precedent for future violations of two basic constitutional freedoms–freedom to travel and freedom from unreasonable search.” The article details the “one-two-three model” of airport security that is nothing compared to today’s gate rapes. The process included behavioral profiling (a profile which wasn’t released because it would endanger national security) and magnetometers. A person was only suppose to be subject to search if they both matched the behavior profile (of a hijacker) and set off the metal detector, but RS argued the process subjected those who “look freaky” (i.e. long haired hippie types) to unreasonable searches. ...