Anne Moody's Former College Professor Recalls This 'Gifted Mississippi Activist and Writer'

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(Editor's note: Sociologist John R. Salter, Jr. is a well-known civil rights and labor activist. I am proud to publish this following piece he has written on Anne Moody, his former student at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. On a personal note, I never met her, but Moody's book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, gave me powerful insight into the civil rights struggles of her times. It is a wonderful book, and a "must read." Moody died at the age of 74 on Thursday, Feb.5, 2015. Susan Klopfer)

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Mississippi author and civil rights activist, Anne Moody 

... we shall always remember a brave and plucky and committed 

human being who, despite the many and various vicissitudes, 

continued toward the Sun.   

John R. Salter, Jr.

I and my good spouse, Eldri, knew Anne Moody from the point that we and Anne arrived at Tougaloo Southern Christian College in late summer, 1961, myself as a professor and she as a student. We were in contact with her from about that point until late summer, 1994.

She was a fine student of mine in a number of courses, and became a close friend of Eldri and myself.  Passionately committed to social justice, Anne was a strong supporter of our Jackson civil rights movement which began very actively in latter 1962 as the economic boycott of the downtown Jackson area and which feathered out into our massive Jackson Movement in the spring of 1963.  

---

If Anne often distrusted some components of government, she was an essentially trusting person when it came to human beings.

---

Her role in our historic Woolworth Sit-In at Jackson Mississippi on May 28, 1963, is very well known. After the active demonstration phase of the Jackson Movement, she lent her valuable efforts as a CORE representative in other most challenging Magnolia [Mississippi state flower] situations. Her fine writing abilities are very well exemplified in her classic work, Coming of Age in Mississippi, and in a number of other pieces.

Moody's Coming of Agein Mississippi, a "must read."

In addition to being a very good friend, she was also, as a great many of my students and former students often are, an advisee of mine, and I her advocate, at many points. (From that perspective, I am ethically constrained from discussing any details in any personal challenges she may have faced.  I maintain confidences.  There is no chronological statute of limitations for me on those.)

But I will broadly mention two matters.  If Anne often distrusted some components of government, she was an essentially trusting person when it came to human beings.  In almost all of those cases, that trust was eminently justified.

But not all.  In 1991, she was significantly enmeshed – through no fault of her own –- in a bureaucratic/medical situation in New York City where she resided. She was able to contact me.  I extricated her from that mess pronto.

---

Her book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, guarantees her immortality.

---

In the earlier part of 1994, and not of her making, "something" tangibly occurred in which she had very good reason to fear for her personal liberty in New York City.  A faithful neighbor of hers, an elderly Jewish man, worked with me (I was in North Dakota) to put her on a fast track to our university town of Grand Forks in that rather remote state.  For about three months, in the spring of 1994, she and her son, Sasha, lived in a motel quite near our home. We assisted her in a number of ways, as we had on earlier occasions, and continued that for a time into the summer after she and Sasha moved on back East and contact with other writers. Then, we lost touch with her.

Her book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, guarantees her immortality.  But more than that, we shall always remember a brave and plucky and committed human being who, despite the many and various vicissitudes, continued toward the Sun.

Hunter Gray/ John R Salter Jr. / Hunter Bear, Pocatello, Idaho, February 6 2015

... at the Mississippi lunch counter

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(From Jerry Mitchell of The Clarion Ledger, Feb. 7, 2015):

Born in 1940 in Wilkinson County, she attended segregated schools and worked to help her poor family.

While attending Natchez Junior College, she became involved with the civil rights movement. She then attended Tougaloo College, where her involvement grew deeper.

On May 28, 1963, she took part in the sit-in at Woolworth's in downtown Jackson. A mob attacked her, Joan Trumpauer and Tougaloo professor John Salter Jr. and others, hitting them and pouring flour, salt, sugar and mustard on top of them.

It was the most violent response to a sit-in in the 1960s in the U.S.)

Link: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/journeytojustice/2015/02/06/anne-moody-has-died/23016675/

* * *

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 

Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari' . Check out our massive social justice website:
www.hunterbear.org

Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Core dimensions of my Community Organizing course:
http://www.labornet.org/news/0000/hbear.htm

Some early personal activist history / good people and issues:

http://civilrightsnewsreleases.blogspot.com/2015/01/hinter-bear-maintaining-normally-high.html

My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000
word introduction by me. Covers much of my
confrontational social justice organizing life to
date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing
methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

See this for mini-bio, efforts to prevent JM’s appearance in
Mississippi, a wide range of its many reviews, and some
photos: http://www.amazon.com/John-R.-Salter/e/B001KMEHWY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos) 

Hunter Bear -- Maintaining 'Normally High' Optimism: Notes From a Street-Smart Activist

(Editor’s note: Hunter Gray (Hunter Bear, John R. Salter, Jr.) is a well-known and successful civil rights and labor advocate. He is a retired professor who enjoys sharing his stories with those who strive for equality. He recently sent out this note, and has given his permission to share it with others. Be sure to read his Organizer's Book, JACKSON MISSISSIPPI! Hunter has been an inspiration to me, and so many others, and I hope you enjoy the following. Susan Klopfer, author, Who Killed Emmett Till)

'Maintaining My Normally High Optimism'

This is a kind of selective mini-memoir, reaching back into the latter 1950s and the earlier part of the 1960s – embracing a number of diverse and good people of strong social justice feelings, much of this in the Red Scare epoch.  I could write much more on that and comparable periods but am keeping this within the limits stirred by a very recent letter from a long ago student of mine at a small college, Wisconsin State at Superior, in northern Wisconsin.

Hunter Bear (Hunter Gray, John Salter, Jr.), accomplished activist and professor

Many in Eastern Idaho, including our family, have been hit by the nationally notorious flu. We all weathered that, some with anti-biotics, but in my case a troubling cough persisted.  My domestic responsibilities considerably increased of late, and thus not inclined to take chances, I went to a medical outpost where I was given a chest X Ray. The doc told me I had pneumonia and, when I asked -- was there anything more serious, such as COPD which had taken one my best friends some years ago, I was looked at like I was a high school kid and told pneumonia was very serious.  In the end, with an array of medicines, I threw that off handily.  I may have had it for some time.

The letter came from Mark, now retired from a long and successful teaching career.  It said, in part, “You inspired me then and although I could never be as strong and as tough as you, I have done a few good things in a life filled with luck.  The memory of you inspires me still.”

Drinking black coffee and smoking my tobacco pipe for several hours very early this morning, I traveled back into time.  I wrote Mark later this morning, saying in part:

I very much appreciate your good words – and glad to know my role at Superior, as activist and teacher, was encouraging in those challenging days and circumstances.

It’s been a hell of a challenging period for literally everyone we know. One of my major struggles these days is to maintain my normally high optimism and faith in most of Humanity.  So far, I think I’ve been successful.

The fact is, in that ‘way back time that doesn’t seem that long ago, it was “you students” who certainly inspired me!  I have always remembered you all – with the greatest appreciation and Eldri feels exactly the same way.  We handled some very tough challenges effectively and well. You, yourself, were certainly a major figure in that struggle.

The age difference between myself and you all was obviously pretty minimal. (I note you are 78 and I am virtually 81.)  At Superior, as at my one year of high school teaching in the Nebraska Sandhills country a couple of years before I got to Wisconsin, I felt no social distance between myself as a teacher -- and my students – from whom I always learn much whatever the setting and times.

In fact, that’s been basically my ethos everywhere I have gone as a “professor.”  I’ve often told classes, “I’m not really a professor, just pretending to be one.”

+ + +

I wrote a long letter to the paper attacking HUAC, the film, and praising the student activists.

+ + +

I arrived at Superior State College as it was often known, as an instructor, in late summer, 1960, fresh from a few months on super isolated Bear Mountain Fire Lookout in extreme eastern Arizona and armed with a fresh M.A. from Arizona State, Tempe.  I had been hired at the last minute. I was already a reasonably experienced organizer, militant labor and student rights, and my own kind of radical, but its president, Jim Dan Hill knew nothing personal of my background, save that I was a good part Indian, a veteran and an Arizonian.

No sooner at that college, I learned it was the super authoritarian fiefdom of its president, General Jim Dan Hill, best described as a Texas Bircher. My  sociology teaching load was very heavy, fine with me. Hill and I clashed early on when, in his weekly newspaper column, “Let’s Look At The Record” he praised the witch hunting House Un-American Activities Committee, and the purely awful red-baiting film, “Operation Abolition, which attacked the student protestors and their militant organization – SLATE – who had challenged HUAC during its hearings in the Bay Area early in 1960 via very vigorous demonstrations.

(Decades later, I met the good Bill Mandel, then about 90, on our discussion lists He had played a very constructive and centrally activist ant-HUAC role in those very events.  We found we had crossed trails many times in our lives.  I was about the last person interviewed by Bill on his weekly radio program at Berkeley – KPFA – on Native concerns in late 2005.  Shortly after that, Bill was struck by a car, badly injured, and became inactive.  He remains much missed.)

I wrote a long letter to the paper attacking HUAC, the film, and praising the student activists. It was published.

And I found I was an instant celebrity in Superior where few, and certainly virtually no faculty, ever criticized General Hill openly.  I also learned there was a long extant movement against Hill out in the community – but it had lost a good deal of steam.

Early on, the college Ski Club, all male, saw me and recognized the kind of faculty sponsor they’d like – not a fussy professorial and intrusive type.  Though no ski buff – I am a snowshoes guy – I agreed to be their faculty cover.  Soon thereafter, the Ski Club had one of its big parties – no females and pretty tame by today’s standards.  But, perhaps because of my role as sponsor – I wasn’t at the affair – the Dean of Students, a classic Hill sycophant, officially abolished the Club.  We talked to Student Government which protested the Dean’s action.  The Dean and General Hill then abolished  Student Government in total.

I and a good number of students, some Ski and many others, then had a large mass protest meeting in the college auditorium.

And the War against Hill was on.  Mark, my good and very recent correspondent, was among the first to join the effort.  It was then that I learned that Mark’s uncle, a resident of Superior, was a national VP of the American Federation of Teachers – and an old friend of Bill Karnes, also a national VP of AFT, and president of Phoenix Local 1010 of AFT. Among my several active union affiliations was my at-large membership in 1010.

+ + +

We began systematically contacting potential allies – e.g., political, labor, and general community members.

+ + +

Bill was one of a great many AFL-CIO unionists in Arizona and elsewhere who politely and firmly ignored the flow of attempted mandates from the Federation’s top level – most generated by the predatory Steel Union – seeking to prevent contact with the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, widely seen by its critics as “Communist.”  My own relations with Mine Mill were very close indeed. Bill Karnes and other teacher unionists had always appreciated Mine Mill’s considerable assistance in organizing AFT locals in the mining towns.  AFL-CIO craft unions were much involved with Mine Mill in fighting the copper companies.  And, in any case, Mine Mill, with 10,000 plus members in Arizona – the largest union in the state which, in 1956 and 1957, had won bargaining rights at two major Magma Copper properties – could hardly be ignored.

One of Bill’s best high school students, Rodney, eventually went to UC at Berkeley where he immediately connected with under-grad and grad students who were forming the radical campus political party, SLATE. One of the latter was the older economics student Clinton Jencks, always a widespread and beneficial influence, and late of Mine Mill, Salt of the Earth, the Jencks Case.  They were all involved together in the anti-HUAC fight.

Back at Superior, our student movement, mostly Anglo but some Native, mushroomed fast.  We put out a regularly issued and fiery but rational  mimeographed protest journal, focused on many education issues and certainly student and faculty academic freedom – and, too, faculty and staff salary discrimination. We began systematically contacting potential allies – e.g., political, labor, and general community members. The somewhat dormant, broad and very diverse anti-Hill community movement began to stir – then came vigorously alive.

But the students, Mark and many others indeed, who often didn’t see themselves as activists, were the consistent spear-point.  General Hill attacked me as an atheist and an advocate of free love (the latter for my support, voiced in my Marriage and Family course, of the Swedish system of trial marriage.) Only a little more surreptitiously did he and his cohorts attack me consistently as a Communist.  FBI documents of concerning me, secured many years later via FOIA/PA, indicate Hill brought the willing FBI into it all as an ally very early on.

The fight went through the entire spring semester of 1961.

+ + +

Thus I met Eldri, and we were married a few months later at a very well attended wedding.

+ + +

Mark’s AFT uncle introduced me, at an AFT conference, to Governor Gaylord Nelson (later U.S. Senator).  We had a short but very productive discussion.  Soon after that, the Gov appointed a member of the Board of Regents as a kind of college overseer.  At the end of that spring term, Hill was given only three or so more years and his powers were sharply limited.  He was required to get Regents’ approval for any significant policy and fiscal appropriations decisions.

Eldri, then employed on campus by several Lutheran churches as their student counselor, had come to my attention when a member of the still functioning Ski Club (however unofficial its status) and an Irish Catholic, told me that “a Lutheran girl” had a phonograph record of SLATE’s anti-HUAC protests. Thus I met Eldri and we were married a few months later at a very well attended wedding.  We left Superior in the summer of 1961 for Mississippi teaching and organizing -- and my later organizing with the leftist Southern Conference Educational Fund in the Northeastern North Carolina Black Belt. We finally left the South in 1967 and went on to many other tough campaigns, and college/university teaching – often an activist endeavor in its own right.

Eldri

Over the years, Eldri and I kept in touch with as many of our old friends and fellow combatants as we could.  In the fall of 1965, I carefully wrote the basic draft of what became the first edition of my book on our massive Jackson Movement of 1961-63.  When that was finally published in 1979, it did OK sales-wise – but I also sent over 100 copies as gifts to as many of our old fighting friends I could locate.

During the civil rights period, I went on a few speaking junkets. Bill Karnes, in Arizona, played a key role, along with Harry Stamler, a veteran radical, in setting up speaking engagements for me in Phoenix metro.  Aware that my only life insurance was my GI/VA policy which I had continued, and that I couldn’t get one in Dixie, Local 1010 quickly provided a good one for me.

+ + +

In the old days – going back in time a good ways – it has always seemed to me that friends and foes alike were much more candidly open in their positions, often duking it out, mostly nonviolently but sometimes not.

+ + +

The Arizona Mine Mill Council was as pleased to have me as its major speaker on the civil rights movement as I was to appear before that very large gathering of its many Arizona local unions.

General Hill returned to Texas.  In 1981, a good friend, Duane Hale, Creek Indian and an academic historian, ran across Hill at the West Texas Historical Conference.  He reported that the Old Dragon was old and frail.

Many years after all of this, I learned from our good friend, Stephen Zunes, who we have known since he was a precocious seven year old, that Bill Karnes was his cousin on his mother’s side.  Not surprised at all.

In the old days – going back in time a good ways – it has always seemed to me that friends and foes alike were much more candidly open in their positions, often duking it out, mostly nonviolently but sometimes not.  Nowadays, all sorts of disingenuous stuff, often covert back-biting and back-knifing, seem much more common on the part of our adversaries, and occasionally even a few of our ostensible allies.

The people I have mentioned fondly and well were, and those who remain still, are very fine people.  I wouldn’t try ideological analysis on any of them and their productive contributions -- or their multitude of interesting inter-connections.  As my old cowboy/artist and radical mentor, Frank Dolphin, was sometimes prone to trenchantly note:

“Like pulls to like.”

Hunter Bear

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' . 

Check out our massive social justice website:

www.hunterbear.org 

Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
Core dimensions of my Community Organizing course:

http://www.labornet.org/news/0000/hbear.htm

My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word introduction by me. Covers much of my confrontational social justice organizing life to date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

See this for mini-bio, efforts to prevent JM’s appearance in Mississippi, a wide range of its many reviews, and some photos: http://www.amazon.com/John-R.-Salter/e/B001KMEHWY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos)

Real Civil Rights History Beats Out "The Help" and Hollywood's Take on Mississippi

Publisher's Note: Just received this announcement from Hunter Bear, a seasoned Civil Rights Veteran... Hunter Bear, formerly known as John Salter, was THERE when the modern civil rights movement took place in Mississippi. He is a sociologist and the perfect person to write about events that occurred. You will not have a better opportunity to see history through his eyes. Hunter is a well-known Native American activist, thus giving his book a unique perspective. Here are some links to learn more. John, by the way, was spokesman for the lunch counter sit-ins at the Jackson Woolworth store. Local papers ran pictures of him dripping with ketchup, mustard and blood, with "funny" captions that were terrifying. The movement in Mississippi brought death to many, and he was very fortunate to have survived. So, please take a look and please share this with others. It is a work of living history. Hollywood needs to read and learn.Susan Klopfer,publisher of Civil Rights and Social Justice News\\

Credit: AP Photos

A photo from May 28, 1963, shows a sit-in demonstration at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Miss., where whites poured sugar, ketchup and mustard over the heads of the demonstrators. Seated at the counter are John Salter (left), Joan Trumpauer (center) and Anne Moody.
# # # # #

Friends:

The new enlarged and updated edition of my book, JACKSON MISSISSIPPI: AN AMERICAN CHRONICLE OF STRUGGLE AND SCHISM, is now available for purchase.

The publisher is Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press. The publisher's link, a bit further down, discusses the book, provides several reviews, and carries ordering information.

The initial Introduction in the two earlier editions has been replaced by one written by me. This is, in many ways, a large, additional chapter [about 9500 words] which up-dates Mississippi, discusses our family's always interesting experiences since the first edition of JM appeared in 1979, and contains supplemental autobiographical material. And, of course, it also contains something of my reflections as a life-long social justice organizer.

The dedication:

For Eldri and the Family -- truly a Golden Horde

And in memory of Doris and Ben Allison and Medgar Wiley Evers

Thus this will likely be my basic autobiographical memoir. As a corollary to that, however, I must say that my health is fine.

The University of Nebraska Press is one of the largest university presses in the country.

Here is their announcement of Jackson, Mississippi: (Click on the photo and it'll get bigger.)

http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Jackson-Mississippi,674910.aspx

(You may also wish to check out the front page of our very large Lair of Hunterbear website. We have rearranged that and it now carries, among other new dimensions, about three dozen of our representative links. Makes for quick and easy reference. www.hunterbear.org Also, if you know of other people who may be interested in our Jackson Mississippi message, I would be much obliged if you could pass this along. Many thanks.)

In the Mountains of Eastern Idaho

Nialetch/Onen/Solidarity

Hunter Bear (Hunter Gray / John R. Salter, Jr.)

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

Our Lair of Hunterbear website is now almost 12 years old. It
contains a great deal of primary, first-hand material on Native
Americans, Civil Rights Movement, union labor, and organizing
techniques -- and much more. Check it out and its vast number
of component pieces. The front page itself -- the initial cover
page -- has about 36 representative links.

www.hunterbear.org

See - Some Basic Pieces in our Jackson Movement
"Scrapbook" Three consecutive web pages -- primary
documents, photos of beating and demonstrations,
oral history components, much more. Begin with

http://hunterbear.org/a_piece_of__the_scrapbook.htm

And see this on the new, expanded and updated edition of my book,
Jackson Mississippi -- the classic and fully detailed account of
the historic and bloody Jackson Movement of almost 50 years ago:

http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

Hunterbear: Notes on Endangered Native Burials in the Florida Everglades; Way Back When -- Jackson, Mississippi and Civil Rights

Blog post by Hunter Bear
http://www.hunterbear.org

(Publisher's note: Hunterbear is a noted civil rights veteran, a university professor, and author.)

Earlier today I posted on the endangered Native burials in the Florida Everglades.

Sam Friedman writes:

It is hard to find words for such behavior. Attack, oppress and steal from people when they are alive, then desecrate their remains.

Not surprising, but still disgusting.

And my response:

You're right, Sam. And this situation is found across much of the United States. It's particularly prevalent in the Southwest where, in addition to such matters as construction in roads, buildings, and gas lines which can pose problem for burials, there is also a good deal of digging and looting of ancient graves for pots and crafts and sometimes presumed [but non-existent] gold and silver. Relatively recent laws, Federal and some state, are difficult to enforce in rugged back country -- even when there's some official motivation to enforce.

Not far northeastward from Flagstaff and in the lower elevated cedar country and related stretches into the very vast Navajo country, one can find hundreds of ancient Anasazi ruins around 800 years old. Those "old ones", ancestors of the contemporary Hopi, buried their dead to the south and east of their rock building structures. The latter crumbled over the centuries but the ruins and the burials remained, of course, and have been systematically pillaged by Anglo grave robbers for many, many decades. It's not unusual to find scattered skeletal remains along with the broken pieces of clay pots and other artifacts. It's also almost impossible to find a "ruin" in that region that hasn't had its burial area torn up.

In my long several days trek down vast and deep Sycamore Canyon southwest of Flagstaff in 1955, [a repeat journey is not totally out of the question by any means], I found some quite intact Native cliff dwellings in side canyons not far "up" from Sycamore Creek. I'd never reveal the location of those to anyone, anymore than I'd reveal the location of what I'm certain are the last surviving Grizzlies in that super rugged setting and in Arizona itself -- or the location of fairly rich gold bearing quartz that I spotted when the Canyon dropped down into the heavily mineralized Great Verde Fault. All of that's pretty safe -- I know of no one else who has ever done that long trek and systematic exploration. (The minerals would now be safe in any case since the eventual Wilderness Act covers Sycamore and prohibits any mining.)

The Navajo avoid anything relating to the old ruins in their vast reservation -- bigger than the state of West Virginia -- north and northeastward of Flagstaff and into Utah and New Mexico and a bit of Colorado. I've posted this before long ago but it says that pretty well:


HUNTING DEER WITH NED HATATHLI IN THE CINDER HILLS OF NORTHERN ARIZONA -- AND OUR ANASAZI CONCERNS [HUNTER GRAY 1/27/03]

Note by Hunter Bear:

This is simply another of virtually countless indications that the Native
nations and cultures have their own unique, deeply rooted and primary
identities. Many Anglos understand and respect this -- but many still do
not.

Concern about DNA tests and related matters is broadly held in Indian
Country. This news story from the Salt Lake Trib quotes a Paiute's view:
"Among Brewster's own Northern Paiute tribe, he said, "We're not even
supposed to go near burials . . . the whole idea of disturbing a burial is
serious business."

This concern, for example, is extremely and very, very widely pronounced
among the Dine' [Navajo] where the Chindee [a powerful taboo] mandates
avoidance of the dead and all things directly related thereto. Violation of
Chindee requires extensive cleansing and harmony-restoring ceremonies by
Navajo medicine men -- who train rigorously for about 17 years before they
are considered full-fledged practitioners in the totally interrelated and
pervasively blended spheres of spirit, body, and Cosmos.

Our own family's ties with the Navajo are extremely close in the deepest and
most personal sense. When hunting -- say, at various points from
north/northeast and east of Flagstaff up and away into vast Navajoland -- no
Navajo I have ever been with or known would even go close to one of the many
hundreds of old [around 800 years old] Anasazi ruins whose burial grounds
are always just to the east and south of these ancient pre-Hopi villages.

The late Ned A. Hatathli [Hatathali] [1923-1972], who came from a very
traditional Navajo sheep-herding family near Coalmine Mesa, was one of my
father's top art students ever at Arizona State College, Flagstaff -- having
come there on the GI Bill via World War II. Some many years later, at the
end of the '60s, Ned played the key role in founding and launching Navajo
Community College [now Dine' College] -- the very first of the now many
Indian-controlled tribal colleges. He was NCC's first president. Far more
than all of those major dimensions, however, Ned Hatathli was a very close
family friend throughout his life. And he was someone who would often take
me deer hunting when I was a kid still without a vehicle. He used a
conventional 30/30 Winchester Model 94 lever action -- and I had an ancient
Winchester 1892 44/40 lever action which had served a venerable Basque
sheep-herder very well for decades. The jutting edge of its steel
saddle-ring-holder was worn down from an already long, long life in a tough
leather saddle scabbard. And when I got that good old rifle -- my first ever
for big game -- I was even given some black powder cartridges, but I
generally used the smokeless powder ones.

I remember an interesting -- but for me quite unsurprising -- scene where,
in the eastern edge of the Cinder Hills [a major volcanic region mostly just
east and north of Flagstaff, going back to upheavals around 1065 A.D. which
also involved the super-high and very spectacular San Francisco Peaks
immediately north of town], Ned and I spotted a very large buck mule deer.
It was difficult to get a clear shot in the cedars that were around it. As
we moved stealthily and hopefully toward it, the deer's keen senses jerked
it to attention. Aware of something, but not sure where we were, it
retreated slowly into some heavier cedars. We followed, very slowly, very
carefully.

And then -- shrewdly, coincidentally, or psychically -- The Quarry was going
literally into the midst of a large and obvious Anasazi ruin: several large
piles of rocks partially covered with cinders and sand and sage. Even from
some distance, we could see some broken pieces of pottery sprinkled
about --shining in the bright sun.

As one, Ned and I stopped, turned -- and went on to other game trails. Big
Buck could not have been safer.

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

Our Lair of Hunterbear website is now almost 12 years old. It
contains a great deal of primary, first-hand material on Native
Americans, Civil Rights Movement, union labor, and organizing
techniques -- and much more. Check it out and its vast number
of component pieces. The front page itself -- the initial cover
page -- has about 36 representative links.
www.hunterbear.org

See - A Few Basic Pieces in our Jackson Movement
"Scrapbook". Three consecutive web pages beginning with
http://hunterbear.org/a_piece_of__the_scrapbook.htm

And see this on the new, expanded and updated edition of my book,
Jackson Mississippi -- the classic and fully detailed account of
the historic and bloody Jackson Movement of almost 50 years ago:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm