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<H1><FONT size=3>Note by Hunter Bear:</FONT></H1>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=3>This is a rich interview with a Native elder, Susan
Kelly Power, Standing Rock Sioux. Over the years I have posted a number of
things involving Susan and her daughter, Susan Mary Power, a noted author [The
Grass Dancer and other works.] Both Susan and "Susie" are among our very
oldest friends -- and we hear regularly from them. "Big Susan" has
been an extremely effective sparkplug for decades in Chicago -- truly one of the
toughest towns. She has been consistently in the "good fight" since
she was a child. During our family's years in Chicago and nearby Iowa City,
we worked together closely with Susan and a number of other highly committed
Indian people on a number of Native projects. [H]</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<H1>Urban Native Americans feel they have a foot in two worlds</H1>
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<P class=small sizset="15" sizcache="8">Susan Kelly Power, 86, in her
South Shore apartment. She is part of the Sioux nation and moved to
Chicago about seven decades ago. <SPAN class=credit sizset="16"
sizcache="8">(<SPAN class=photographer>Abel Uribe, Chicago Tribune</SPAN>
/ <SPAN class=dateMonth>March </SPAN><SPAN class=dateDay>28</SPAN><SPAN
class=dateYear>, 2011</SPAN></SPAN>)</P>
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<DIV class=relatedTitle sizset="20" sizcache="8">University of Chicago
conference addresses issues affecting Indians who live in cities</DIV></DIV>
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<DIV style="MAX-WIDTH: 267px" class=byline sizset="34" sizcache="8"><SPAN
class=byline>Dawn Turner Trice</SPAN> </DIV>
<P style="MAX-WIDTH: 267px" class=date sizset="35" sizcache="8"><SPAN
class=dateString>March 28, 2011</SPAN></P>
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<DIV id=story-body>Susan Power grew up in a three-room house on a <A
id=PLGEO100104400000000 class=taxInlineTagLink title="South Dakota"
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/us/south-dakota-PLGEO100104400000000.topic">South
Dakota</A> reservation, a stone's throw from where Sioux Indian Chief Sitting
Bull was believed to be buried.<BR><BR>"Whenever we would see a car of white
people driving up the road, my mother would send my sister and me out to sit
near the grave," said Power, 86, a longtime <A id=PLGEO0100100501250000
class=taxInlineTagLink title=Chicago
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/us/illinois/cook-county/chicago-PLGEO0100100501250000.topic">Chicago</A>
activist and member of the Dakota nation. "We'd pretend we didn't speak English
and we'd hear them talking about us. But we sat there because people were always
trying to steal from his grave and they wouldn't do it if someone was
looking."<BR><BR>Power left the reservation in 1942 and moved to Chicago to care
for a relative. But she never lost her connection to the stories and the life on
the reservation. She said it wasn't until 1961 when she attended a conference
organized by noted <A id=OREDU0000151 class=taxInlineTagLink
title="University of Chicago"
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/education/colleges-universities/university-of-chicago-OREDU0000151.topic">University
of Chicago</A> anthropologist Sol Tax that she got a chance to address something
many urban Indians were struggling with: the feeling of having a foot in two
worlds and not belonging entirely to either.<BR><BR>On Saturday, Power will join
other Native Americans from around the country at the University of Chicago to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the conference many considered to be a
groundbreaking event.<BR><BR>
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</DIV><BR>"It was the first time that Indians from the reservation and from the
city came together," Power said. "The conference helped remind people that
whatever differences that were cropping up, those of us in urban areas still
belonged to the reservation as if we were living there on a daily
basis."<BR><BR>About 700 Native Americans attended that event and later
presented the concerns of more than 80 tribal groups to the federal government.
The conference, called the Declaration of Indian Purpose, reaffirmed the need
for tribes to come together to protect their treaty rights and
sovereignty.<BR><BR>The goal of Saturday's conference, which Power helped
conceive, is to create a new national agenda for Native Americans who live in
cities and are dealing with poor access to quality health care, high dropout
rates and high unemployment, among other things.<BR><BR>Organizers of this
year's conference are concerned that although urban Indians on average outnumber
those on reservations 10-to-1, native people in urban areas are often invisible
when it comes to getting federal funding geared toward Indians.<BR><BR>Last
week, I met Power at her South Shore Drive apartment building. What you notice
immediately about her is how tall and striking she is with her white hair pulled
back from her face.<BR><BR>And though she has had some health problems over the
years, she said she has no intention of slowing down. She still speaks regularly
at engagements around the city and country, is on the elder council of the
American Indian Association of Illinois and helps at polling places during
election time.<BR><BR>She said there's still much to do, which is why she
doesn't hold back on issues she finds particularly vexing: Upwardly mobile
Native Americans who care more about themselves than those less fortunate; the
high dropout rate among Indians in Chicago public schools; and the clusters of
aimless young black men she passes on the streets of her <A
id=PLGEO100100501258300 class=taxInlineTagLink title="South Shore"
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/us/illinois/cook-county/chicago/south-shore-PLGEO100100501258300.topic">South
Shore</A> neighborhood.<BR><BR>"Some of my neighbors worry about me walking to
the library," she said. "But I care about those young men I see. And I treasure
books and reading so much that I'm going to keep going over there until I can't
anymore. I walk past them and nobody bothers the old Sioux
dinosaur."<BR><BR>Power's fearlessness and concern stem from decades of
activism. She has followed the example of her mother, who was an impassioned
advocate for the rights and well-being of Indians.<BR><BR>"My mother was the
first native woman in the country to be in a leadership position," Power said.
"Once my mother was asked why she didn't have one of the new homes being built
on the reservation. She said, 'When all my people have nice homes, then I'll
consider it.'"<BR><BR>When Power came to Chicago nearly seven decades ago, there
were only about 200 Native Americans in the city, she said.<BR><BR>"We had no
cars or telephones, but we managed to find each other and stick together," she
said. "If one got a job, we immediately did very well in it so that others could
be hired too."<BR><BR>In 1944, she helped found the National Congress of
American Indians in Chicago. She's the last living founding member. She is also
the last living founding member of the American Indian Center of Chicago, which
opened in 1953 and was the first of its kind in the nation.<BR><BR>Power said
that although there was a plan to get Indians off reservations so their land
could be taken away, many came to cities voluntarily searching for jobs and
better schools.<BR><BR>"So, for some, it was a choice," she said. "But we still
have the same rights as every member who lives on a reservation, and we're not
getting access to those rights."<BR><BR>She said the idea that Indians on
reservations benefit greatly from the largess of casinos is a
myth.<BR><BR>"Tribes don't have sufficient funding to run their schools,
hospitals and roads," she said. "But people in cities want the ability to
compete for funding designated for Indian people. The goal has to be to help
everyone prosper and pull forward."<BR><BR><I><A
href="mailto:dtrice@tribune.com">dtrice@tribune.com</A></I>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq
/St. Francis <BR>Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk <BR>Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ
<BR>and Ohkwari' <BR> <BR>I have always lived and worked in the
Borderlands.<BR>Our Hunterbear website is now eleven years old..<BR>Check out <A
href="http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm">http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>See - Personal and Detailed Background
Narrative:<BR><A
href="http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm">http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>See - Just What Makes A Damn Good Community
Organizer:<BR><A
href="http://www.hunterbear.org/just_what_makes_a_damn_good_comm.htm">http://www.hunterbear.org/just_what_makes_a_damn_good_comm.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>And see - Community Organizing Principles -- Or,
Getting Practical:<BR><A
href="http://hunterbear.org/communityorganizing.htm">http://hunterbear.org/communityorganizing.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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