06 Native Historians Do Stand-up The People's Recorder podcast

5M ago 45:58

Content provided by Spark Media, Inc. and Spark Media. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Spark Media, Inc. and Spark Media or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

Episode Summary:

In 1977, Charlie Hill became the first Native comedian to perform on a national TV broadcast – a groundbreaking performance in television and cultural history.

“It was a huge moment,” said Seminole filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, “When Charlie Hill went on national television and simply spoke like a human being... He changed the public perception about what a Native person is.”

Charlie Hill’s comedic approach to the Oneida story is part of a long lineage of storytellers and historians defying stereotypes that includes Oscar Archiquette, a young Oneida working construction when the Federal Writers’ Project came to Wisconsin in the 1935. Archiquette joined a local unit of the Writers’ Project that sought to preserve the Oneida language and histories by interviewing elders and transcribing their stories. That work – and its blend of activism, culture and disarming humor – inspired later Oneida historians such as Loretta Metoxen and Gordon McLester and continues to inspire tribal historians today.

Speakers:

Michelle Danforth Anderson, Oneida documentarian

Gordon McLester, Oneida historian

Loretta Metoxen, Oneida historian

Betty McLester, Oneida elder

Gerald Hill, Oneida elder

Jennifer Webster, Council Member

Links and Resources:

Oneida Nation Cultural Heritage Webpage

Charlie Hill's performance on the Richard Pryor Show, 1977

Oneida Notebooks Rediscovered, 1999

Human-Powered Podcast, Episode 5, "The Power of Indigenous Knowledge

Further Reading:

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans in Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

Oneida Lives edited by Herbert Lewis

Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Uncover Depression America by David A. Taylor

“Indian Humor” chapter in Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria Jr.

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor and James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Scott Nelson Elm, Gerald Hill, Ethan Oser and Marjorie Stevens

Special Thanks: Christopher Powless

Featuring music and archival material from:

The Oneida Singers

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

NPR

MSNBC

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

16 episodes