OGLALA | On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of the poorest places in America, Gerald One Feather's journey began in a dirt-floored log cabin.
But One Feather started his rise when he went to college and drove a car for a young congressional candidate bound for larger roles, got a boost when he entered tribal politics, gained stature when he met with U.S. presidents and spoke on behalf of indigenous people to a United Nations gathering.
And as a symbol of how far he traveled from that cabin, late in life he received a standing ovation from 40,000 people inspired by his commitment and achievements.
Tributes were pouring into the reservation Friday for One Feather, the legendary Oglala Sioux leader and former tribal president who was revered, respected and sometimes ridiculed for his unyielding stance in support of his people.
“He’s one of those giant trees, whose falling shakes the entire earth,” said Carrie L. Billy, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which One Feather helped found. “Throughout it all, Mr. One Feather remained focused on his culture, his spirituality, and service to his people.”
Humble beginning
Born July 10, 1938, in the Pine Ridge Hospital, the oldest child of Jackson “Joe” One Feather and Elva (Stinking Bear) One Feather, he lived in a log home on the Stinking Bear tiospaye compound.
At the urging of a childhood friend, One Feather left home in 1956 with just $20 in his pocket to attend Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell.
To secure free room and board, he became a linebacker on the DWU football team.
That fall, former DWU professor McGovern ran for Congress, and One Feather became one of the drivers who escorted the Democratic hopeful throughout the state.
“On election eve, I drove McGovern to a television station in Sioux Falls where he made a final appeal,” One Feather wrote a decade ago in a brief biography. “He had started campaigning with only a third of the vote in the polls against incumbent Harold Louvre.
His door-to-door campaigning in virtually every town in South Dakota brought him through with a `squeaker’ win.”
That winning experience led One Feather to a life of advocacy for his people and to his election in 1970, at age 32, as the youngest president in the history of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
“There have been three intertwining themes in my life,” One Feather wrote. “I have been involved in spiritual, political and academic affairs my entire life.
I have been fortunate to be selected and elected as a leader in these fields.”
On Thursday night, Tribal President Bryan Brewer issued a statement noting the Oglala Lakota Oyate of the Pine Ridge Reservation had lost another great leader in the passing of One Feather.
“It is a sad day for the Lakota Nation and our people,” Brewer said. “Gerald was a friend and I will miss him.
His tireless work in education was instrumental in what we now have today in our communities. Gerald was a pioneer in the field of education for the Oglala Sioux.
He was the founder of Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge reservation. His lifelong commitment to education for his people will always be remembered.”
Prior to his election as tribal leader, One Feather, like his father before him, spent years in tribal government. Those positions included four years as tribal councilman, two years as chairman, and five two-year terms as tribal treasurer. One Feather also helped establish the OST Public Safety Commission and served eight years as its executive director.
While tribal councilman, he was roundly criticized for banning the sale of alcohol on the reservation, a measure that passed by one vote. The ban remained in effect for more than three decades, until reservation residents overturned it by a 151-vote margin last August.
With support from other tribal chairmen in the U.S. and Canada, One Feather helped establish the National Tribal Chairman’s Association, served as vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, served on the board of the American Friends Service Committee, and the South Dakota Indian Affairs Committee during the George S. Mickelson and Walter Dale Miller administrations.
A tireless advocate for educational opportunities, One Feather helped found Oglala Lakota College and the Alexandria, Va.-based American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which he served as president of for 10 years.
He carried that same enthusiasm for education home to his family.
Honors and accolades
In 1995, One Feather was selected by tribal elders to serve as staff keeper for 33 Lakota/Dakota/Nakota nations in Canada and the U.S. The staff keeper, a lifetime appointment, organizes a meeting of traditional leaders every year, including a traditional Sun Dance.
“When I asked the elders how I had been selected, they responded, 'We had a sweat, and we asked the spirits for guidance. They selected you,'” One Feather wrote.
One Feather’s many years of devotion and service earned him numerous other awards and kudos, including Outstanding Service to the Oglala Lakota Oyate (1986), Georgetown University’s Petra Foundation Fellowship (1995), the Washington Times Foundation Award (2000), and an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Colorado—Boulder (2013), the latter awarded before a crowd of 40,000.
Gemma Lockhart, the newest member of the Denver American Indian Commission, was there that day last May when a stadium full of education-lovers stood to offer an ovation to One Feather’s lasting legacy.
“It was the kind of moment that seems like a dream,” Lockhart said Friday. “The stadium was filled with thousands and thousands of people, alive and happy with graduation.
The energy was vibrant, pure inspiration. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment as the crowd jumped to its feet and applauded the man from Oglala, the staff keeper of tribes on the Northern Plains and Canada.”
“When I think of Gerald One Feather," she said, "I think of friendship and leadership. He had a keen sense of how the other side of life happens, the side that has to do with the sun and the song of a bird more than a clock and the morning news.
Tom Katus, of Rapid City, was a longtime friend of One Feather's, and the two shared a bond through their staunch advocacy of tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
“Gerald was one of the most prominent Native American leaders in South Dakota, the nation and even internationally, as he made presentations to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on behalf of indigenous rights,” Katus said. “He was, quite simply, a giant.
“Gerald also was a real visionary,” Katus added. “But a lot of people are visionaries and nothing happens. He made them happen.”
The product of a politically active family, One Feather was on hand in 1968 when another political scion, U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., was making his bid for the presidency and came to Pine Ridge, Katus said. Kennedy visited Calico Village, near Oglala, where he met One Feather’s father, Joe.
“The national press was following Kennedy's campaign,” One Feather wrote as an insider to history. “He visited a very poor family in a log cabin and when he came out, he was crying about the desperate conditions in which he saw the family.
This compassionate demonstration of emotion spread like wildfire throughout the reservation. Kennedy won an overwhelming vote on Pine Ridge, which helped him win South Dakota, even though native son Hubert Humphrey was his major competitor.
“South Dakota and California were the final presidential primaries in June 1968,” One Feather continued. “A Kennedy aide, Jeff Smith, was coordinating get-out-the-vote efforts on Pine Ridge. At about 9 p.m., he received a telephone call from the senator. He had just found out that he'd won the state and asked Jeff how he had done on Pine Ridge.
“Smith replied, `Well, senator, the reservation is very rural so that the results are just starting to come in. However, Pine Ridge Village voted 672-2 for you.’ There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Kennedy deadpanned, `How in the world did we lose two votes, Jeff?’ Two hours later, Kennedy was assassinated immediately following his victory speech in California.”
One Feather on spirituality
I was raised by spiritual parents, and both my grandfather and father on my mother's side were medicine men. There was great turmoil on the Reservation in the 1970s. One day, my friend Amos Badheart Bull came by and picked me up. We drove to a hill where we had both previously prayed. We both saw a spirit on the top of the hill.
Amos said, “You are supposed to go to him. I'll stay in the car.”
I went to the hill and prayed to the spirits to give me guidance on what could be done to help the people. On the way down the hill, I kicked a bottle that was partially buried in the soil. I picked it up and found it to be a sealed wine bottle. Despite the fact that the seal was not broken, the bottle was empty. I took this as a sign that I should convince the council to ban alcohol on the reservation. I brought this proposal to the council. It was very controversial and by a one-vote margin, the council banned alcohol on the reservation, which has stood for the past 30 years.
Later on that same year in a hill near Calico, I fasted and prayed for four days. On the last day, just before daybreak, four figures appeared to me.
One had a feather hanging from his arm. He said he was Crazy Horse and that I should work to support the return of the Black Hills to the people. The next figure had one feather sticking straight up at the back of his head. He said, “I am Sitting Bull. You are here to help revive the rights of the Lakota nation.”
The third figure wore a headdress. This was Red War Bonnet, who had the power to organize the tiospayes in the 1870s. The fourth figure had a blanket around him. He said, “I am Matosnimna. I am the medicine man who was with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and served as their surgeon general at the Battle of Greasy Grass [Little Big Horn]. I want you to help the traditional tiospaye communities to develop themselves.”
Since that vision, I have attempted to carry out the wishes of the spiritual leaders. I continue to support the return of the Black Hills to the Lakota and believe that this will, indeed, occur. I have fought for these rights, including representing our people at the United Nations in Geneva.
I have tried to carry out Sitting Bull's directions by reviving the traditional young women's ceremony and teenage boys' vision quest. Traditionally, these ceremonies were practiced but were nearly lost.
My wife, Ingrid, and I have been involved in re-establishing these ceremonies for young people who, in puberty, are transitioning from girls and boys to young women and men …
We are hopeful these ceremonies will continue to be revived to help bring back the Lakota Nation. If we lose these ceremonies, together with the loss of our language, this will be the loss of our culture. It is up to the next generation to save us from this loss of culture.
But One Feather started his rise when he went to college and drove a car for a young congressional candidate bound for larger roles, got a boost when he entered tribal politics, gained stature when he met with U.S. presidents and spoke on behalf of indigenous people to a United Nations gathering.
And as a symbol of how far he traveled from that cabin, late in life he received a standing ovation from 40,000 people inspired by his commitment and achievements.
Tributes were pouring into the reservation Friday for One Feather, the legendary Oglala Sioux leader and former tribal president who was revered, respected and sometimes ridiculed for his unyielding stance in support of his people.
“He’s one of those giant trees, whose falling shakes the entire earth,” said Carrie L. Billy, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which One Feather helped found. “Throughout it all, Mr. One Feather remained focused on his culture, his spirituality, and service to his people.”
Humble beginning
Born July 10, 1938, in the Pine Ridge Hospital, the oldest child of Jackson “Joe” One Feather and Elva (Stinking Bear) One Feather, he lived in a log home on the Stinking Bear tiospaye compound.
At the urging of a childhood friend, One Feather left home in 1956 with just $20 in his pocket to attend Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell.
To secure free room and board, he became a linebacker on the DWU football team.
That fall, former DWU professor McGovern ran for Congress, and One Feather became one of the drivers who escorted the Democratic hopeful throughout the state.
“On election eve, I drove McGovern to a television station in Sioux Falls where he made a final appeal,” One Feather wrote a decade ago in a brief biography. “He had started campaigning with only a third of the vote in the polls against incumbent Harold Louvre.
His door-to-door campaigning in virtually every town in South Dakota brought him through with a `squeaker’ win.”
That winning experience led One Feather to a life of advocacy for his people and to his election in 1970, at age 32, as the youngest president in the history of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
“There have been three intertwining themes in my life,” One Feather wrote. “I have been involved in spiritual, political and academic affairs my entire life.
I have been fortunate to be selected and elected as a leader in these fields.”
On Thursday night, Tribal President Bryan Brewer issued a statement noting the Oglala Lakota Oyate of the Pine Ridge Reservation had lost another great leader in the passing of One Feather.
“It is a sad day for the Lakota Nation and our people,” Brewer said. “Gerald was a friend and I will miss him.
His tireless work in education was instrumental in what we now have today in our communities. Gerald was a pioneer in the field of education for the Oglala Sioux.
He was the founder of Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge reservation. His lifelong commitment to education for his people will always be remembered.”
Prior to his election as tribal leader, One Feather, like his father before him, spent years in tribal government. Those positions included four years as tribal councilman, two years as chairman, and five two-year terms as tribal treasurer. One Feather also helped establish the OST Public Safety Commission and served eight years as its executive director.
While tribal councilman, he was roundly criticized for banning the sale of alcohol on the reservation, a measure that passed by one vote. The ban remained in effect for more than three decades, until reservation residents overturned it by a 151-vote margin last August.
With support from other tribal chairmen in the U.S. and Canada, One Feather helped establish the National Tribal Chairman’s Association, served as vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, served on the board of the American Friends Service Committee, and the South Dakota Indian Affairs Committee during the George S. Mickelson and Walter Dale Miller administrations.
A tireless advocate for educational opportunities, One Feather helped found Oglala Lakota College and the Alexandria, Va.-based American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which he served as president of for 10 years.
He carried that same enthusiasm for education home to his family.
Honors and accolades
In 1995, One Feather was selected by tribal elders to serve as staff keeper for 33 Lakota/Dakota/Nakota nations in Canada and the U.S. The staff keeper, a lifetime appointment, organizes a meeting of traditional leaders every year, including a traditional Sun Dance.
“When I asked the elders how I had been selected, they responded, 'We had a sweat, and we asked the spirits for guidance. They selected you,'” One Feather wrote.
One Feather’s many years of devotion and service earned him numerous other awards and kudos, including Outstanding Service to the Oglala Lakota Oyate (1986), Georgetown University’s Petra Foundation Fellowship (1995), the Washington Times Foundation Award (2000), and an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Colorado—Boulder (2013), the latter awarded before a crowd of 40,000.
Gemma Lockhart, the newest member of the Denver American Indian Commission, was there that day last May when a stadium full of education-lovers stood to offer an ovation to One Feather’s lasting legacy.
“It was the kind of moment that seems like a dream,” Lockhart said Friday. “The stadium was filled with thousands and thousands of people, alive and happy with graduation.
The energy was vibrant, pure inspiration. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment as the crowd jumped to its feet and applauded the man from Oglala, the staff keeper of tribes on the Northern Plains and Canada.”
“When I think of Gerald One Feather," she said, "I think of friendship and leadership. He had a keen sense of how the other side of life happens, the side that has to do with the sun and the song of a bird more than a clock and the morning news.
Tom Katus, of Rapid City, was a longtime friend of One Feather's, and the two shared a bond through their staunch advocacy of tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
“Gerald was one of the most prominent Native American leaders in South Dakota, the nation and even internationally, as he made presentations to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on behalf of indigenous rights,” Katus said. “He was, quite simply, a giant.
“Gerald also was a real visionary,” Katus added. “But a lot of people are visionaries and nothing happens. He made them happen.”
The product of a politically active family, One Feather was on hand in 1968 when another political scion, U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., was making his bid for the presidency and came to Pine Ridge, Katus said. Kennedy visited Calico Village, near Oglala, where he met One Feather’s father, Joe.
“The national press was following Kennedy's campaign,” One Feather wrote as an insider to history. “He visited a very poor family in a log cabin and when he came out, he was crying about the desperate conditions in which he saw the family.
This compassionate demonstration of emotion spread like wildfire throughout the reservation. Kennedy won an overwhelming vote on Pine Ridge, which helped him win South Dakota, even though native son Hubert Humphrey was his major competitor.
“South Dakota and California were the final presidential primaries in June 1968,” One Feather continued. “A Kennedy aide, Jeff Smith, was coordinating get-out-the-vote efforts on Pine Ridge. At about 9 p.m., he received a telephone call from the senator. He had just found out that he'd won the state and asked Jeff how he had done on Pine Ridge.
“Smith replied, `Well, senator, the reservation is very rural so that the results are just starting to come in. However, Pine Ridge Village voted 672-2 for you.’ There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Kennedy deadpanned, `How in the world did we lose two votes, Jeff?’ Two hours later, Kennedy was assassinated immediately following his victory speech in California.”
One Feather on spirituality
I was raised by spiritual parents, and both my grandfather and father on my mother's side were medicine men. There was great turmoil on the Reservation in the 1970s. One day, my friend Amos Badheart Bull came by and picked me up. We drove to a hill where we had both previously prayed. We both saw a spirit on the top of the hill.
Amos said, “You are supposed to go to him. I'll stay in the car.”
I went to the hill and prayed to the spirits to give me guidance on what could be done to help the people. On the way down the hill, I kicked a bottle that was partially buried in the soil. I picked it up and found it to be a sealed wine bottle. Despite the fact that the seal was not broken, the bottle was empty. I took this as a sign that I should convince the council to ban alcohol on the reservation. I brought this proposal to the council. It was very controversial and by a one-vote margin, the council banned alcohol on the reservation, which has stood for the past 30 years.
Later on that same year in a hill near Calico, I fasted and prayed for four days. On the last day, just before daybreak, four figures appeared to me.
One had a feather hanging from his arm. He said he was Crazy Horse and that I should work to support the return of the Black Hills to the people. The next figure had one feather sticking straight up at the back of his head. He said, “I am Sitting Bull. You are here to help revive the rights of the Lakota nation.”
The third figure wore a headdress. This was Red War Bonnet, who had the power to organize the tiospayes in the 1870s. The fourth figure had a blanket around him. He said, “I am Matosnimna. I am the medicine man who was with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and served as their surgeon general at the Battle of Greasy Grass [Little Big Horn]. I want you to help the traditional tiospaye communities to develop themselves.”
Since that vision, I have attempted to carry out the wishes of the spiritual leaders. I continue to support the return of the Black Hills to the Lakota and believe that this will, indeed, occur. I have fought for these rights, including representing our people at the United Nations in Geneva.
I have tried to carry out Sitting Bull's directions by reviving the traditional young women's ceremony and teenage boys' vision quest. Traditionally, these ceremonies were practiced but were nearly lost.
My wife, Ingrid, and I have been involved in re-establishing these ceremonies for young people who, in puberty, are transitioning from girls and boys to young women and men …
We are hopeful these ceremonies will continue to be revived to help bring back the Lakota Nation. If we lose these ceremonies, together with the loss of our language, this will be the loss of our culture. It is up to the next generation to save us from this loss of culture.
OGLALA | On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of the poorest places in America, Gerald One Feather's journey began in a dirt-floored log cabin.
But One Feather started his rise when he went to college and drove a car for a young congressional candidate bound for larger roles, got a boost when he entered tribal politics, gained stature when he met with U.S. presidents and spoke on behalf of indigenous people to a United Nations gathering.
And as a symbol of how far he traveled from that cabin, late in life he received a standing ovation from 40,000 people inspired by his commitment and achievements.
Tributes were pouring into the reservation Friday for One Feather, the legendary Oglala Sioux leader and former tribal president who was revered, respected and sometimes ridiculed for his unyielding stance in support of his people.
“He’s one of those giant trees, whose falling shakes the entire earth,” said Carrie L. Billy, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which One Feather helped found. “Throughout it all, Mr. One Feather remained focused on his culture, his spirituality, and service to his people.”
Humble beginning
Born July 10, 1938, in the Pine Ridge Hospital, the oldest child of Jackson “Joe” One Feather and Elva (Stinking Bear) One Feather, he lived in a log home on the Stinking Bear tiospaye compound.
At the urging of a childhood friend, One Feather left home in 1956 with just $20 in his pocket to attend Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell.
To secure free room and board, he became a linebacker on the DWU football team.
That fall, former DWU professor McGovern ran for Congress, and One Feather became one of the drivers who escorted the Democratic hopeful throughout the state.
“On election eve, I drove McGovern to a television station in Sioux Falls where he made a final appeal,” One Feather wrote a decade ago in a brief biography. “He had started campaigning with only a third of the vote in the polls against incumbent Harold Louvre.
His door-to-door campaigning in virtually every town in South Dakota brought him through with a `squeaker’ win.”
That winning experience led One Feather to a life of advocacy for his people and to his election in 1970, at age 32, as the youngest president in the history of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
“There have been three intertwining themes in my life,” One Feather wrote. “I have been involved in spiritual, political and academic affairs my entire life.
I have been fortunate to be selected and elected as a leader in these fields.”
On Thursday night, Tribal President Bryan Brewer issued a statement noting the Oglala Lakota Oyate of the Pine Ridge Reservation had lost another great leader in the passing of One Feather.
“It is a sad day for the Lakota Nation and our people,” Brewer said. “Gerald was a friend and I will miss him.
His tireless work in education was instrumental in what we now have today in our communities. Gerald was a pioneer in the field of education for the Oglala Sioux.
He was the founder of Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge reservation. His lifelong commitment to education for his people will always be remembered.”
Prior to his election as tribal leader, One Feather, like his father before him, spent years in tribal government. Those positions included four years as tribal councilman, two years as chairman, and five two-year terms as tribal treasurer. One Feather also helped establish the OST Public Safety Commission and served eight years as its executive director.
While tribal councilman, he was roundly criticized for banning the sale of alcohol on the reservation, a measure that passed by one vote. The ban remained in effect for more than three decades, until reservation residents overturned it by a 151-vote margin last August.
With support from other tribal chairmen in the U.S. and Canada, One Feather helped establish the National Tribal Chairman’s Association, served as vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, served on the board of the American Friends Service Committee, and the South Dakota Indian Affairs Committee during the George S. Mickelson and Walter Dale Miller administrations.
A tireless advocate for educational opportunities, One Feather helped found Oglala Lakota College and the Alexandria, Va.-based American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which he served as president of for 10 years.
He carried that same enthusiasm for education home to his family.
Honors and accolades
In 1995, One Feather was selected by tribal elders to serve as staff keeper for 33 Lakota/Dakota/Nakota nations in Canada and the U.S. The staff keeper, a lifetime appointment, organizes a meeting of traditional leaders every year, including a traditional Sun Dance.
“When I asked the elders how I had been selected, they responded, 'We had a sweat, and we asked the spirits for guidance. They selected you,'” One Feather wrote.
One Feather’s many years of devotion and service earned him numerous other awards and kudos, including Outstanding Service to the Oglala Lakota Oyate (1986), Georgetown University’s Petra Foundation Fellowship (1995), the Washington Times Foundation Award (2000), and an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Colorado—Boulder (2013), the latter awarded before a crowd of 40,000.
Gemma Lockhart, the newest member of the Denver American Indian Commission, was there that day last May when a stadium full of education-lovers stood to offer an ovation to One Feather’s lasting legacy.
“It was the kind of moment that seems like a dream,” Lockhart said Friday. “The stadium was filled with thousands and thousands of people, alive and happy with graduation.
The energy was vibrant, pure inspiration. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment as the crowd jumped to its feet and applauded the man from Oglala, the staff keeper of tribes on the Northern Plains and Canada.”
“When I think of Gerald One Feather," she said, "I think of friendship and leadership. He had a keen sense of how the other side of life happens, the side that has to do with the sun and the song of a bird more than a clock and the morning news.
Tom Katus, of Rapid City, was a longtime friend of One Feather's, and the two shared a bond through their staunch advocacy of tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
“Gerald was one of the most prominent Native American leaders in South Dakota, the nation and even internationally, as he made presentations to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on behalf of indigenous rights,” Katus said. “He was, quite simply, a giant.
“Gerald also was a real visionary,” Katus added. “But a lot of people are visionaries and nothing happens. He made them happen.”
The product of a politically active family, One Feather was on hand in 1968 when another political scion, U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., was making his bid for the presidency and came to Pine Ridge, Katus said. Kennedy visited Calico Village, near Oglala, where he met One Feather’s father, Joe.
“The national press was following Kennedy's campaign,” One Feather wrote as an insider to history. “He visited a very poor family in a log cabin and when he came out, he was crying about the desperate conditions in which he saw the family.
This compassionate demonstration of emotion spread like wildfire throughout the reservation. Kennedy won an overwhelming vote on Pine Ridge, which helped him win South Dakota, even though native son Hubert Humphrey was his major competitor.
“South Dakota and California were the final presidential primaries in June 1968,” One Feather continued. “A Kennedy aide, Jeff Smith, was coordinating get-out-the-vote efforts on Pine Ridge. At about 9 p.m., he received a telephone call from the senator. He had just found out that he'd won the state and asked Jeff how he had done on Pine Ridge.
“Smith replied, `Well, senator, the reservation is very rural so that the results are just starting to come in. However, Pine Ridge Village voted 672-2 for you.’ There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Kennedy deadpanned, `How in the world did we lose two votes, Jeff?’ Two hours later, Kennedy was assassinated immediately following his victory speech in California.”
One Feather on spirituality
I was raised by spiritual parents, and both my grandfather and father on my mother's side were medicine men. There was great turmoil on the Reservation in the 1970s. One day, my friend Amos Badheart Bull came by and picked me up. We drove to a hill where we had both previously prayed. We both saw a spirit on the top of the hill.
Amos said, “You are supposed to go to him. I'll stay in the car.”
I went to the hill and prayed to the spirits to give me guidance on what could be done to help the people. On the way down the hill, I kicked a bottle that was partially buried in the soil. I picked it up and found it to be a sealed wine bottle. Despite the fact that the seal was not broken, the bottle was empty. I took this as a sign that I should convince the council to ban alcohol on the reservation. I brought this proposal to the council. It was very controversial and by a one-vote margin, the council banned alcohol on the reservation, which has stood for the past 30 years.
Later on that same year in a hill near Calico, I fasted and prayed for four days. On the last day, just before daybreak, four figures appeared to me.
One had a feather hanging from his arm. He said he was Crazy Horse and that I should work to support the return of the Black Hills to the people. The next figure had one feather sticking straight up at the back of his head. He said, “I am Sitting Bull. You are here to help revive the rights of the Lakota nation.”
The third figure wore a headdress. This was Red War Bonnet, who had the power to organize the tiospayes in the 1870s. The fourth figure had a blanket around him. He said, “I am Matosnimna. I am the medicine man who was with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and served as their surgeon general at the Battle of Greasy Grass [Little Big Horn]. I want you to help the traditional tiospaye communities to develop themselves.”
Since that vision, I have attempted to carry out the wishes of the spiritual leaders. I continue to support the return of the Black Hills to the Lakota and believe that this will, indeed, occur. I have fought for these rights, including representing our people at the United Nations in Geneva.
I have tried to carry out Sitting Bull's directions by reviving the traditional young women's ceremony and teenage boys' vision quest. Traditionally, these ceremonies were practiced but were nearly lost.
My wife, Ingrid, and I have been involved in re-establishing these ceremonies for young people who, in puberty, are transitioning from girls and boys to young women and men …
We are hopeful these ceremonies will continue to be revived to help bring back the Lakota Nation. If we lose these ceremonies, together with the loss of our language, this will be the loss of our culture. It is up to the next generation to save us from this loss of culture.
But One Feather started his rise when he went to college and drove a car for a young congressional candidate bound for larger roles, got a boost when he entered tribal politics, gained stature when he met with U.S. presidents and spoke on behalf of indigenous people to a United Nations gathering.
And as a symbol of how far he traveled from that cabin, late in life he received a standing ovation from 40,000 people inspired by his commitment and achievements.
Tributes were pouring into the reservation Friday for One Feather, the legendary Oglala Sioux leader and former tribal president who was revered, respected and sometimes ridiculed for his unyielding stance in support of his people.
“He’s one of those giant trees, whose falling shakes the entire earth,” said Carrie L. Billy, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which One Feather helped found. “Throughout it all, Mr. One Feather remained focused on his culture, his spirituality, and service to his people.”
Humble beginning
Born July 10, 1938, in the Pine Ridge Hospital, the oldest child of Jackson “Joe” One Feather and Elva (Stinking Bear) One Feather, he lived in a log home on the Stinking Bear tiospaye compound.
At the urging of a childhood friend, One Feather left home in 1956 with just $20 in his pocket to attend Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell.
To secure free room and board, he became a linebacker on the DWU football team.
That fall, former DWU professor McGovern ran for Congress, and One Feather became one of the drivers who escorted the Democratic hopeful throughout the state.
“On election eve, I drove McGovern to a television station in Sioux Falls where he made a final appeal,” One Feather wrote a decade ago in a brief biography. “He had started campaigning with only a third of the vote in the polls against incumbent Harold Louvre.
His door-to-door campaigning in virtually every town in South Dakota brought him through with a `squeaker’ win.”
That winning experience led One Feather to a life of advocacy for his people and to his election in 1970, at age 32, as the youngest president in the history of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
“There have been three intertwining themes in my life,” One Feather wrote. “I have been involved in spiritual, political and academic affairs my entire life.
I have been fortunate to be selected and elected as a leader in these fields.”
On Thursday night, Tribal President Bryan Brewer issued a statement noting the Oglala Lakota Oyate of the Pine Ridge Reservation had lost another great leader in the passing of One Feather.
“It is a sad day for the Lakota Nation and our people,” Brewer said. “Gerald was a friend and I will miss him.
His tireless work in education was instrumental in what we now have today in our communities. Gerald was a pioneer in the field of education for the Oglala Sioux.
He was the founder of Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge reservation. His lifelong commitment to education for his people will always be remembered.”
Prior to his election as tribal leader, One Feather, like his father before him, spent years in tribal government. Those positions included four years as tribal councilman, two years as chairman, and five two-year terms as tribal treasurer. One Feather also helped establish the OST Public Safety Commission and served eight years as its executive director.
While tribal councilman, he was roundly criticized for banning the sale of alcohol on the reservation, a measure that passed by one vote. The ban remained in effect for more than three decades, until reservation residents overturned it by a 151-vote margin last August.
With support from other tribal chairmen in the U.S. and Canada, One Feather helped establish the National Tribal Chairman’s Association, served as vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, served on the board of the American Friends Service Committee, and the South Dakota Indian Affairs Committee during the George S. Mickelson and Walter Dale Miller administrations.
A tireless advocate for educational opportunities, One Feather helped found Oglala Lakota College and the Alexandria, Va.-based American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which he served as president of for 10 years.
He carried that same enthusiasm for education home to his family.
Honors and accolades
In 1995, One Feather was selected by tribal elders to serve as staff keeper for 33 Lakota/Dakota/Nakota nations in Canada and the U.S. The staff keeper, a lifetime appointment, organizes a meeting of traditional leaders every year, including a traditional Sun Dance.
“When I asked the elders how I had been selected, they responded, 'We had a sweat, and we asked the spirits for guidance. They selected you,'” One Feather wrote.
One Feather’s many years of devotion and service earned him numerous other awards and kudos, including Outstanding Service to the Oglala Lakota Oyate (1986), Georgetown University’s Petra Foundation Fellowship (1995), the Washington Times Foundation Award (2000), and an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Colorado—Boulder (2013), the latter awarded before a crowd of 40,000.
Gemma Lockhart, the newest member of the Denver American Indian Commission, was there that day last May when a stadium full of education-lovers stood to offer an ovation to One Feather’s lasting legacy.
“It was the kind of moment that seems like a dream,” Lockhart said Friday. “The stadium was filled with thousands and thousands of people, alive and happy with graduation.
The energy was vibrant, pure inspiration. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment as the crowd jumped to its feet and applauded the man from Oglala, the staff keeper of tribes on the Northern Plains and Canada.”
“When I think of Gerald One Feather," she said, "I think of friendship and leadership. He had a keen sense of how the other side of life happens, the side that has to do with the sun and the song of a bird more than a clock and the morning news.
Tom Katus, of Rapid City, was a longtime friend of One Feather's, and the two shared a bond through their staunch advocacy of tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
“Gerald was one of the most prominent Native American leaders in South Dakota, the nation and even internationally, as he made presentations to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on behalf of indigenous rights,” Katus said. “He was, quite simply, a giant.
“Gerald also was a real visionary,” Katus added. “But a lot of people are visionaries and nothing happens. He made them happen.”
The product of a politically active family, One Feather was on hand in 1968 when another political scion, U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., was making his bid for the presidency and came to Pine Ridge, Katus said. Kennedy visited Calico Village, near Oglala, where he met One Feather’s father, Joe.
“The national press was following Kennedy's campaign,” One Feather wrote as an insider to history. “He visited a very poor family in a log cabin and when he came out, he was crying about the desperate conditions in which he saw the family.
This compassionate demonstration of emotion spread like wildfire throughout the reservation. Kennedy won an overwhelming vote on Pine Ridge, which helped him win South Dakota, even though native son Hubert Humphrey was his major competitor.
“South Dakota and California were the final presidential primaries in June 1968,” One Feather continued. “A Kennedy aide, Jeff Smith, was coordinating get-out-the-vote efforts on Pine Ridge. At about 9 p.m., he received a telephone call from the senator. He had just found out that he'd won the state and asked Jeff how he had done on Pine Ridge.
“Smith replied, `Well, senator, the reservation is very rural so that the results are just starting to come in. However, Pine Ridge Village voted 672-2 for you.’ There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Kennedy deadpanned, `How in the world did we lose two votes, Jeff?’ Two hours later, Kennedy was assassinated immediately following his victory speech in California.”
One Feather on spirituality
I was raised by spiritual parents, and both my grandfather and father on my mother's side were medicine men. There was great turmoil on the Reservation in the 1970s. One day, my friend Amos Badheart Bull came by and picked me up. We drove to a hill where we had both previously prayed. We both saw a spirit on the top of the hill.
Amos said, “You are supposed to go to him. I'll stay in the car.”
I went to the hill and prayed to the spirits to give me guidance on what could be done to help the people. On the way down the hill, I kicked a bottle that was partially buried in the soil. I picked it up and found it to be a sealed wine bottle. Despite the fact that the seal was not broken, the bottle was empty. I took this as a sign that I should convince the council to ban alcohol on the reservation. I brought this proposal to the council. It was very controversial and by a one-vote margin, the council banned alcohol on the reservation, which has stood for the past 30 years.
Later on that same year in a hill near Calico, I fasted and prayed for four days. On the last day, just before daybreak, four figures appeared to me.
One had a feather hanging from his arm. He said he was Crazy Horse and that I should work to support the return of the Black Hills to the people. The next figure had one feather sticking straight up at the back of his head. He said, “I am Sitting Bull. You are here to help revive the rights of the Lakota nation.”
The third figure wore a headdress. This was Red War Bonnet, who had the power to organize the tiospayes in the 1870s. The fourth figure had a blanket around him. He said, “I am Matosnimna. I am the medicine man who was with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and served as their surgeon general at the Battle of Greasy Grass [Little Big Horn]. I want you to help the traditional tiospaye communities to develop themselves.”
Since that vision, I have attempted to carry out the wishes of the spiritual leaders. I continue to support the return of the Black Hills to the Lakota and believe that this will, indeed, occur. I have fought for these rights, including representing our people at the United Nations in Geneva.
I have tried to carry out Sitting Bull's directions by reviving the traditional young women's ceremony and teenage boys' vision quest. Traditionally, these ceremonies were practiced but were nearly lost.
My wife, Ingrid, and I have been involved in re-establishing these ceremonies for young people who, in puberty, are transitioning from girls and boys to young women and men …
We are hopeful these ceremonies will continue to be revived to help bring back the Lakota Nation. If we lose these ceremonies, together with the loss of our language, this will be the loss of our culture. It is up to the next generation to save us from this loss of culture.
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