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PRESS RELEASE
United Native America America _Indian _Made
United Native America will be in Denver, Colorado Oct. 7th to protest the Columbus Day Parade. We will meet with all people that would like to join us at Four Winds Indian Project at 5th and Downing, 205 West 5th Ave. at 8:00 AM Oct. 7th.
On Oct. 9th, Columbus Day, we will be in Pueblo, Colorado to join groups in their protest. Pueblo is known to be the first place to hold a Columbus Day Parade in this Country. The time has come for all Americans to stand up against the Columbus atrocities toward the Indian Nations he came in contact
with, the first one being the Taino Indian Nation.
Are we as American citizens so blind to the truth of Columbus that we allow for our tax dollars to pay for a national holiday for a mass murderer, kidnapper, enslaver and a thief? As a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, with Italian heritage myself, I take no pride in my Italian heritage in this country. When you look at the millions of tax dollars that have been spent on fighting organized crime in this country and countless television shows glorifying Italian mobsters and my tax dollars paying for Columbus Day, this is a National Sick Joke! The Italian community in this country needs to wake up to their overall dirt bag, low life image. you can view this image weekly on HBO with your family. The Italian community is not protesting the image of them that is being portrayed in television and movies. Columbus is the Hitler of America! It is another National sick joke, that of all the Federal holidays on the books, not one of them recognize or pay tribute to the American Indians. The so called founding fathers of this country brought about the Federal Government using Indian Government as a guide. Freedom of speech, separation of Governmental powers and Federalism was achieved by observing Indian Governments. It did not come from Europe, Africa, Middle east or Asia. There is not one group of people in this country that have suffered or endured any more hardship than the American Indians, nor any race of people on the face of this planet. Slavery around the world and human genocide in world war two is one thing, but the Indians have endured five centuries of genocide and wars fighting for their homeland to live in peace. With all that this great Nation of America has today, came from the American Indians homeland at the expense of the worlds longest holocaust against the Indian race. With all the support that the American Indians have given to the Federal and State Governments in the forming of this Country, we should not have to ask for a national holiday. Our ancestors helped the Federal Government come about and achieve it's independence July 4th 1776, we have Thanksgiving Day because of the American Indians and countless more contributions. African Americans have proclaimed the confederate flag racist and should be taken out of schools and public buildings. Not one word in the national news media is said about what the American Indians endured under the United States flag. My question to America is why is the plight of one group of people in this country more important to correct and make amends for what was done to them and completely ignore what was done to the original inhabitants of this land?
United Native America is calling on all Americans to make this country face up to the inhuman acts committed against the American Indian people. It is time for the genocide of American Indians to stop now, along with the racial exclusion of them in our society today. The Congressional Indian Caucus in Washington DC. is drafting a national holiday bill at this time to
bring before Congress after the first of next year,
their number is 202-225-3611 - ask for Kimberly Teehee or contact
Hayworth of Arizona
Founder United Native America
IMPORTANT PRESS RELEASE FROM UNITED NATIVE AMERICA
OCTOBER 2, 2000
For those of you that are planning on driving to the demonstration in Denver Colorado Oct. 7th, and would have room for others to ride with you on the way please contact United Native America
at
"MIKE GRAHAM".
For those of you that would like to join a car pool and help with the cost, send an email to us with your location and we will try to coordinate transportation so that you will have a way to the demonstration. When you arrive in Denver Colorado you can meet up with us at Four Winds Indian Project at Fifth and Bannock 205 West 5th Ave. At 8:00am Oct. 7th. United Native America has been in contact with all the news papers and television stations in Denver to include several others around the state. We are looking for a good turn out at the demonstration that day. We have been in contact with Glen Morris a professor at the Denver Colorado University. Mr. Morris was one of the people involved in the negotiations to change the name of the Columbus Day parade. The Italian community has stated publicly that they will not honor that agreement. It is time for Congress to change Columbus Day to Native American Day so we and our children in the future will not have to keep going through this. Founder United Native America - Mike L. Graham
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON PARADE PROTEST FROM MIKE GRAHAM - OCTOBER 4, 2000
United Native America meeting place in Denver has changed. Please read up date below and letter on Columbus.
From: "Lori Windle" - LORI WINDLE Columbus Parade Protest Saturday, October 7, 2000 - Denver, CO Begin gathering at 8am East steps of the Denver City and County Building, Turn right on Bannock off of Colfax. It's close to the Denver Art Museum and Civic Center Park by 14th Avenue. It's where they have the lighting of the Christmas Lights. This will be a massive, vigorous, non-violent protest of a celebration of Christopher Columbus, a documented murderer of hundreds of thousands of Awawak Indians, and a notorious slave trader. He deserves no holiday and he deserves no parades. The parade organizers had an opportunity to create a healthy relationship with the community of Denver, but instead, chose to continue a destuctive and racist course by continuing to honor Columbus. Participants in the protest are expected to be disciplined, mindful of all elderly and small children, and to refrain from using ethnic or racial slurs.
WHY COLUMBUS SHOULD BE REJECTED AS A NATIONAL HERO "The policy and acts of Columbus for which he alone was responsible began the depopulation of the terrestrial paradise that was Hispaniola in 1492...one third were killed off between 1494 and 1496." (emphasis added) -Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (NY: Little, Brown and Co, 1942), pp. 492-493. "The two leading researchers here, Sherburne Cook and Woodrow Borah of the University of California at Berkeley, have calculated the population decline [of the island of Hispaniola] after 1496,...with an estimate of the original island population of just under 8 million. [The population declined] from 8 million to 28,000 in just over twenty years. That ...is a carnage of more than 99 percent, something we must call closer to a genocide." Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy (NY: Plume Books, 1991), pp. 160-161. "The Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against [the Indians]. They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged, nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughterhouse. They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword could split a man in two or could cut off his head...they took infants from their mothers's breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags...They made some low, wide gallows on which the hanged victim's feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims, in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive." Bartolomé de Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account (originally published in 1547) reprinted by Johns Hopkins Press, 1992, pp. 43-55. Las Casas was a Dominican priest, the first European historian in the Americas, the on-the-scene reporter. "Columbus proceeded to establish a slave trade with the inhabitants of Hispaniola. And this after he had declared time and time again that the Tainos were the kindest, most peaceful and generous people in the world...But now [Columbus] resorted to the monstrous expedient of sending hundreds of the wretched creatures overseas to the slave mart of Seville." Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (see above), pp. 486-487.
United Native America
FROM BLAZING STAR UNIVERSITY COLUMBUS PARADE FOES CALL FOR MASS PROTESTS
By Kevin Simpson
Oct. 3, 2000 - Opponents of the upcoming Columbus Day parade, stung by what they say is a betrayal by parade organizers and city officials, called Monday for massive public protest to decry and disrupt the event. Representatives of American Indian and Hispanic groups spoke out against the collapse of an agreement with Italian-American parade organizers, which only days ago appeared to have found common ground in a long-roiling controversy. They also criticized city officials for backing off the accord they brokered and signed. ''There are 371 treaties that this (agreement) looks just like,'' said Glenn Morris of the American Indian Movement. ''If people had strong words today, it comes from that tradition, that string of deceptions. After 508 years, we asked for one thing, for them to give up one word - Columbus. And they couldn't find it in their hearts to do that.'' Strong words flew in both directions across the chasm between the two groups over the perception of Christopher Columbus as a slave trader who practiced genocide. Many Italian-Americans see Columbus Day as a celebration of the explorer's accomplishments and of their heritage. Organizers of the parade, who signed an agreement to spin the parade as a ''March for Italian Pride'' without mention of Columbus, have since claimed they were coerced into signing the accord and renamed the parade. Morris called for the release of audio tapes of the negotiating session that he says will prove there was no coercion. Philip Arreola, regional director for community relations services of the U.S. Department of Justice, said his office is prohibited from disclosing confidential information from the proceedings. Meanwhile, some of the verbal sparring took on a hard, confrontational edge. ''I know the police are ready, ready to utilize their military gear,'' said American Indian activist Russell Means. ''I know their methods. I know what we're facing. We're not naive. Bring them on.'' Denver safety manager Ari Zavaras said the city will monitor the situation this week to determine the number of marchers and protesters. ''We will make clear what our intention is - to keep safety that day,'' he said. ''We'll be in a position where enough officers are deployed to respond to anything that takes place.'' Parade organizers declared the event will go on. ''Italian people are there to celebrate,'' said organizer Carlo ''C.M.'' Mangiaracina. ''We're not there to irritate, demean or slander anybody. Unfortunately, the other groups can't take that position. If others want to protest, they can protest. But nobody is entitled to be violent. If somebody gets hurt, it'll be at their hands.'' Opponents said they're discouraging violence but did not rule out other means of disrupting the parade. ''There will be massive, nonviolent, vigorous protest,'' said Morris. ''I'll just say civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in this society. >From Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Cesar Chavez, it's a time-honored tradition of protest.'' Since the collapse of a compromise, Mayor Wellington Webb has said the city will allow the parade to go on without restricting references to the explorer. Zavaras said he told both sides that clauses revoking the parade permit if marchers invoke Columbus probably are not enforceable. Amid the continuing acrimony, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens said the state is willing to provide protection, if necessary, for groups such as Italian-Americans, who want to hold a parade named for the explorer. While emphasizing that he was not ''calling out the National Guard,'' Owens said that those troops are always ''ready to provide for the public safety.'' Earlier in the day, Means said if police lay a hand on his 15- and 9-year-old sons while they're protesting, then ''it's war.'' ''And the war doesn't end when I go to jail,'' he said. ''It begins when I get out of jail.'' Eight years ago, organizers of a Columbus Day parade eventually bowed to threats from protesters and canceled the event. But Mangiaracina said that's not going to happen this time. ''We're not back to where we were in '92,'' he said. ''We're proud and we won't be threatened. We're going to have a parade. Until the federal government tells me we can't call it Columbus Day, it's Columbus Day and they need to get used to it.'' Denver Post staff writer Arthur Kane and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2000 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. Articles are shared with subscribers who express prior interest in Blazing Star news, information and feedback for charitable research and educational purposes pursuant to: Title 17 USC §107
Blazing Star
MORE INFORMATION ON COLUMBUS DAY PARADE PROTEST
From Renee Still Day - with thanks!
For those coming to the demonstration, we will meet at the Denver City/County Building across from the Civic Center at 8AM Saturday morning. The city and county building is at 1437 Bannock, at corner of Colfax (and Bannock) across Civic Center Park from the State Capitol building. Meeting is on the east side -- which faces Civic Center park. Please pass on the information to those on your lists. For those coming, this is meant to be a peaceful demonstration but the police may not be of the same mind. It is recommended that small children be left at home. All groups involved have agreed that if a confrontation does break out that AIM security in Denver will be the word of "authority" for our demonstrators, so if they ask you to move on or to stop something, please understand that it is for your safety as well as the safety of other demonstrators and do what they ask. We do not need confrontation amongst ourselves.
Mii-Gwetch, Renee Still Day-October 4, 2000
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