Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader (68 page)

 

The Artist:
The Bellamy Brothers

The Song:
“Let Your Love Flow” (1976)

The Story:
Phil Gernhard was a top producer in the 1960s and’70s, and he routinely used members of Neil Diamond’s touring band as session musicians. One day in 1975, Diamond’s drummer brought him a demo tape of a country/rock song written and performed by a

Diamond roadie named Larry Williams. Gernhard had an ear for hits—he’d produced many, such as “Stay” by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs (1960) and “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” by Lobo (1971). He knew the song had potential, but felt that Williams had the wrong voice for it. But a year later, he heard another roadie, Howard Bellamy, singing to himself backstage at a concert and immediately thought of Williams’s demo. The song written by a roadie would be perfect if it were sung by
this
roadie. As it turned out, Bellamy (and his brother, David) had a band called the Bellamy Brothers. Sung by Howard Bellamy and produced by Gernhard, Williams’s song, “Let Your Love Flow,” went to #1 in 1976.

 

The Artist:
Cyndi Lauper

The Song:
“Time After Time” (1984)

The Story:
Toward the end of recording Lauper’s debut
She’s So Unusual,
producer Rich Chertoff thought the record was
too
unusual—mostly silly, upbeat pop songs—and needed a ballad to show off Lauper’s voice. Lauper demanded she be allowed to cowrite it and began looking for inspiration around the studio. She started riffing on phrases picked out of a
TV Guide
, and the one that stuck was the title of a 1979 movie,
Time After Time
. She created a melody while cowriter Rob Hyman wrote the verses about breaking up with his long-term girlfriend. Cobbled together only three days before the album’s deadline, “Time After Time” ultimately became
She’s So Unusual
’s second single and hit #1.

 

The Artist:
Stevie Wonder

The Song:
“Higher Ground” (1973)

The Story:
Wonder was inspired by an eerie feeling of doom. “It was almost as if I had to get it done,” he said years later
.
“I felt
something
was going to happen. I didn’t know what or when, but I felt something.” Consumed by the idea that his life was somehow about to move to a different level, he wrote and recorded “Higher Ground” in three hours, playing all of the instruments on the reincarnation-themed song himself. It was included on
Innervisions
, released in June 1973. On August 6th, Wonder was severely injured in a car accident in North Carolina. He was in a coma for four days and nearly died. The prescient singer/songwriter recovered, and “Higher Ground” went to #4.

On December 29, 1890, 500 soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry surrounded 350 Lakota Sioux near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. While the soldiers attempted to confiscate rifles from the Indians, who had surrendered, a firearm discharged. Historical records are unclear as to how the gun went off, and whether it was accidental or not. In any event, the soldiers then opened fire on the Sioux with rifles and howitzer-like Hotchkiss guns, and in less than an hour more than 150 Indians—according to some reports, as many as 300—were dead, most of them unarmed women and children.

The Wounded Knee Massacre, as it’s now known, has come to be regarded as the last major clash between North American Indians and white settlers. For the next 70 years, Indians in the U.S. were relegated to reservations and suffered cultural and economic hardships whose repercussions are still felt to this day. But there were no more major armed conflicts—until the 1960s. By then, inspired by the American civil rights movement, American Indian rights organizations such as AIM (American Indian Movement) began forming across North America, not unlike the Black Panthers and other militant African-American groups. Here are a few of the major milestones in the still-ongoing “Red Power Movement.”

 

Alcatraz (1969).
On November 20, Mohawk activist Richard Oakes led about 100 “Indians of All Tribes” in the occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Their reason: They were invoking a clause in an 1868 treaty stipulating that any U.S. territory abandoned by the federal government reverted back to Indian ownership. Alcatraz was abandoned, so they were taking it back, and they demanded the deed to the island and funding to establish an Indian university, cultural center, and museum there. The U.S. government refused and ordered the Indians to leave within 24 hours. Meanwhile, Coast Guard ships surrounded the island.

Not only did the Indians not comply, they occupied the island for nearly 18 months, with the help of supplies they ferried in from San Francisco. Initially, the Indians’ cause enjoyed strong public support, but it eroded as infighting increased among the protesters, especially after a fire destroyed four historic buildings on Alcatraz in June 1971. Most of the remaining occupiers left after the fire, and on June 11 federal agents peaceably removed the last 15 men, women, and children from the island. None of their demands were met, but Indians viewed the occupation of Alcatraz as a remarkable success, as it brought their issues to headlines all over the country—and the world—for the first time in modern history. It was also instrumental in spurring Congress to pass a series of laws in the 1970s that expanded the policy of self-rule on reservations and greatly improved conditions there.

 

Wounded Knee II (1973).
In February 1973, elders on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota called on the leaders of AIM to help them in their fight against mistreatment by federal agents on the reservation and corruption among their own government-backed leaders. The response: On February 27, more than 200 armed AIM members entered the reservation town of Wounded Knee and took over the trading post, several homes, and a church—and took 11 white hostages. What followed was the largest miliary conflict on U.S. soil since the Civil War, as hundreds of heavily armed tribal police officers and government agents surrounded the town and cut off all roads in and out. Over the following weeks, two Indians were shot and killed, and a U.S. Marshal and an FBI agent were wounded. The Indians held the town for 71 tense days before a peaceful end was finally negotiated, and on May 8, the last of the occupiers left the town and were arrested. Nearly all of the hundreds of charges filed against them were later dismissed.

 

The Oglala Shootout (1975).
On June 26, FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were in the Pine Ridge Reservation searching for an Oglala Sioux man named Jimmy Eagle, a suspect in an assault and robbery case, when someone opened fire on their unmarked cars. Both Coler and Williams were later found dead—shot at close range, execution-style. A massive nationwide manhunt followed. Two suspects, Darelle “Dino” Butler and Bob Robideau, were arrested in September; another, Leonard Peltier,
was arrested in Canada in February 1976. All of them were AIM members. Robideau and Butler pled not guilty by reason of self-defense, and both were acquitted. Peltier might have been acquitted, too, if he’d been part of that trial. But he chose to stay in Canada and fight extradition—a battle that he lost. He ended up being tried alone and, in what many observers believe was an unfair trial, was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder. His sentence: two consecutive life terms in prison. Peltier’s case has been the source of much controversy ever since, and remains a
cause célèbre
for many Native Americans, as well as for celebrity activists around the world. Among those who have publicly called for his release (or retrial) are Robert Redford, Bono, Johnny Depp, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Coretta Scott King, the Dalai Lama, and Pope John Paul II.

 

The Oka Crisis (1989).
In 1989 the mayor of Oka, a small town on the Ottawa River in southwestern Quebec, announced that a 9-hole golf course owned by the city was going to be expanded into an 18-hole course, and that 60 condominiums were going to be built nearby. The land was once Mohawk territory and contained a sacred pine forest and a burial ground. In March 1990, armed members of the Mohawk Warrior Society took over the land and blockaded all roads leading to it. After three months of unsuccessful negotiations, the situation exploded: In the early morning hours of July 11, more than 100 members of Quebec’s Provincial Police stormed the blockades, firing tear gas and concussion grenades. A battle ensued, and an officer was killed. That was followed by a 78-day standoff, during which Indian groups across Canada blockaded roads and bridges in solidarity, creating enormous traffic jams and escalating tensions. By August the situation was so bad that the Canadian army was called in and troops stormed the barricades, forcing the Mohawks into a tiny section of the forest. They held out until September 26, when the last 50 or so dismantled their weapons, walked out of the woods, and surrendered. Thirty-four were arrested, but not a single one was convicted. A commission looking into the event found that the July 11 attack by Provincial Police was one of the chief reasons the incident escalated as it did. The Oka golf course still has just nine holes.

 

The Seneca Cigarette Wars (1992).
The most recent incidents involving American Indians have their roots in 1985, when the

Seneca Nation in southwestern New York started selling cigarettes and gasoline—tax-free—on their three reservations. The enterprise was a huge success, and gave the Senecas their first substantial source of income after two centuries of poverty. But business owners outside the reservations cried foul, and the state began trying to impose taxes on the Senecas. That led to a number of confrontations that continue today.

• In July 1992, a New York court ruled that the state could tax the tribe’s sales of gas and cigarettes to nonnatives—which was the majority of their business. A week later, more than 100 Senecas set fire to piles of car tires on the three-mile stretch of Interstate 90 that runs through one of their reservations, closing down the highway for 11 hours. A week of violent clashes with New York State Police followed. Result: The state stopped enforcing the taxes.

• By 1997 Seneca businesses were selling cigarettes online—and making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Again the state tried to tax them, which led to more violent clashes and another blockade of the highway. Again New York stopped trying to tax the Senecas.

• In 2006 New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced that the state would begin enforcing the taxes. The Senecas responded in June 2007 by sending the state a bill for $2.1 million. What for? A toll of $1 on each car that drove through Seneca reservation land on Interstate 90—and that bill only covered the previous couple of months’ worth of cars. It was never paid.

• In December 2008, Governor David Paterson signed a bill that would tax the businesses that supplied the Senecas with cigarettes, a move that would severely cripple the tribe’s economy. In response, Seneca Nation President Barry Snyder announced that the I-90 toll would now be raised to $2 per vehicle. And if the state didn’t pay, the Senecas would build tollbooths and collect the money themselves.

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance. The wise man grows it under his feet.”

—
James Oppenheim

A former police officer, Moss lost his sight in 1992 when his patrol car was involved in a crash during a high-speed chase.
Speed Record:
In October 1999, he set the world blind land speed record when he drove an MG sports car 131 mph down a two-mile-long runway on a Ministry of Defense airbase near Salisbury in southern England. (Virtually all blind speed record attempts are made on runways—they’re the only stretches of pavement that are long enough, wide enough, and well-enough maintained for blind people to drive safely at such high speeds.)

How He Did It:
Moss steered his MG with the aid of a guidance system developed for jet fighter missiles: When gyroscopic instruments detected that the car was veering from a straight course, a signal was sent to Moss via earphones. A beep in the left ear meant he needed to steer left; a beep in the right meant steer right. A tone in both ears meant the car was perfectly straight.

Newman, a 47-year-old bank manager, developed glaucoma as a child and has been blind since age eight. He made his attempt at breaking Moss’s record to raise money for a charity that provides guide dogs for the blind.